Looking Back to Find the Future
by La Pirate Rose
Summary: During the war against Voldemort, a visit from Snape's old friends from his childhood bring memories, romance, gossip, and adventure to the life of our favorite potions professor. SSOC.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. Except the stuff that I created. Everything else is property of whoever made it all up.

Rating: M for some language, and some content in future chapters.

Severus Snape stood in his storage room listening to the sound of his first-year students filing noisily into the potions classroom. He sighed. Regrettably, this mixture of eleven-year-old Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws would be only the first class in a long day of teaching. He slammed his cabinets shut, causing them to shake loudly. He almost didn't see the small, greenish orb that rolled precariously towards the end of the cabinet top. He grabbed it, and placed it gently back in its proper place. 'Look on the bright side,' he thought to himself. At least Harry-and-Company would not be in class with him at all today. 'Neither would Malfoy,' a voice said to him inside his head. This WAS good news. Perhaps the day would not be as bad as he always assumed.

A sudden crash and yelp from the room of 1st-years brought him back to reality: 1st year classes were ALWAYS bad. Snape paused to collect himself - no use showing his angriest demeanor right off - if the young students got used to it, he would have nothing to threaten them with in later years. A glint of light caught his eye. The sun was peeking through a small fray in his dark curtains, and shimmering off the green orb. He picked it up thoughtfully: it was a gift from an old friend of his - a fellow slytherin from his own days at Hogwarts. It was similar to a crystal ball in that one could speak incantations over it, and visions would appear through the glass. However, this small version was programmed with specific memories - a type of wizarding photo album. Snape briefly remembered his own first year, and muttered a short phrase over the ball. He cringed as a not-so-flattering picture of himself as a boy popped into the orb. He was sitting in the stands of the Quidditch pitch in full Slytherin regalia - a young blonde girl was sitting next to him. The photo moved, and Snape saw her turn, stick out her tongue at him, and then turn back to the camera for the photo. Snape was giving his normal surly look, turning to sneer at her and roll his eyes. Snape noticed something disconcerting: though he looked annoyed, he looked young and almost ... happy. There was something in that eye roll. Amusement, perhaps?

Another crash pulled him out of his reverie, and he stalked into the classroom, forgetting his previous promise to hold out on the fully-angered Snape until at least half-way through the term.

FLASH-BACK:

"Sev, for God's sake. Can't you smile for the camera?" Maya poked her friend in the arm. "This is getting ridiculous. Thank goodness we don't have a yearbook."

"Why you silly American's need a book with everyone's picture in it is beyond me." He sneered at her good-naturedly.

"I don't understand it either; I don't pretend to BE an AMERICAN. I'm as bloody British as you are, and you know it. Now suck it up, and smile."

"I am smiling."

"You are not!"

"This is what it looks like when I smile."

"Severus, you are insufferable." She stuck her tongue at him, and then leaned in as the camera went off. Severus looked at her, and rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. While Maya could be bossy and overly cheerful for Severus's taste, they got along alright. Severus didn't have too many friends, and Maya was a little shy, so having each other worked out well. They were currently at the first Quidditch game of the season. Two of Maya's three older sisters were on the Slytherin team. Meena was a third year seeker with a wave of blond-ish hair that bobbed around as she flew gracefully on her broom. Athena was a fifth year keeper who seemed mostly confused by the game until the quaffles got near her. She then proved to be quite adept at swatting them away from her hoops. Maya's oldest sister, Aria, was not a Quidditch player, but was, however, the head girl of Slytherin. She was the only one of the four who's hair was too dark to really be considered blonde.

"Oh! Sev, it's starting. Look! There's Athena!" Maya pointed to her sister, who flew up to her hoops in a quick dash.

"Tell me again why you aren't on the team?" Severus scowled.

"I told you. I'm a keeper. I can't really play until Athena graduates - she's better than I am. A couple more years... and then ... oh yes. The field will be mine." She paused. "You should try out!" She looked at him in glee, knowing his response before even posing the question.

"Ugh!" He spat, as if he had swallowed a large bug. "You know I don't play that barbaric GAME."

Maya giggled. "Fine, fine, fine. Oh! There's Meena!"

"Yes, there she is."

"Can you PLEASE try to be enthusiastic?"

"I am being enthusiastic."

Now it was Maya's turn to roll her eyes. "Very well, Severus. Very well."


	2. Chapter 2

Back to the Present:

"You asked to see me, Headmaster?" He sat in Dumbledore's study.

"Severus, thank you for coming. I have interesting news for you..."

"What has the Potter boy done now?" he sneered.

Dumbledore laughed softly. "Now, now, Severus. Nothing like that. I have a request for you. I have been, as you know, in contact with the Minister of Magic. He has finally taken my advice and set up a meeting with several ministers from areas we are allied with."

Snape sighed. "Don't tell me that bastard Karkaroff is going to be here with his pet KRUM."

"No, no, Severus. I am speaking of the Head of Magic Relations to the American Government. There are many powerful witches and wizards in the states that are sympathetic to our cause. We need a strategy to unite our powers. Madame Liaison will be arriving in London Tuesday evening, and I would like you to accompany her to the castle."

"Very well," Said Snape uneasily. "Who is the Head of Relations now? I fear I don't keep up with American politics."

"An old friend of yours, Severus. Aria Howe."

He raised his eyebrows slightly. "Really? Aria Howe? I had no idea she had manipulated herself into such a ... position."

Dumbledore chose to ignore his snide disapproval. "Yes, she has quite a lot on her plate at this time - it was very kind of her to agree to meet with us."

"I'm sure." He retorted. Dumbledore seemed altogether too entertained by his reaction, which annoyed Snape even more.

"So, you will meet her?"

"I wasn't aware I had a choice."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Thank you Severus. That is all."

Flashback

Maya and Severus sat in the Slytherin common room playing cards by the fire. It was almost Christmas, and most of the students had gone.

"So then, he turned really pale, and ran out of the room. It was sooo weird." Maya was saying.

"I hope he made himself ill," Severus added, putting a card on top of the pile.

"Why? I mean, his friends are assholes, but he seems nice."

"Maya, please. Don't give any of those hoodlums any more credit than they deserve."

Maya shrugged. "It's not like I really know him all that well. I just thought the situation was rather strange."

"I find it strange that you are so fascinated by him."

Maya was about to retort, but Aria, her oldest sister walked into the room in a huff.

"Do you two have anywhere else to gossip?" she asked in a bossy American Accent.

"Don't you have anywhere else to be in a foul mood?" Maya mouthed off.

"I really need to study. I need to get-"

"An O on your DADA exam. We know, we know."

Aria closed her eyes, and looked at Maya with disgust. "Severus? How DO you stand her?"

Maya giggled. "Alright, alright. We'll leave you to your books. Come on Sev. Let's go."

"Wait-" Aria flopped down on the couch. "Do you guys want to help me?"

"Do we want to? No. Do we have a choice?" Severus asked as he stood.

"Please?"

"What do you need?" Maya asked.

"Can you curse me, and see if I can block it? I need to work on my shielding."

Maya and Severus looked at each other and each shrugged.

An hour later Aria sat on the floor, holding her head in her hands. Maya leaned at her side, and Severus quickly flipped through a book of antidotes and counter spells.

"Severus, hurry up! She has three eyes!"

"I'm going as fast as I can, Maya, but it's difficult to find a cure to a curse we seem to have MADE UP." Severus said, his frustration evident.

"I don't CARE about the third eye, just make the screeching in my head go away!" Aria moaned. "It sounds like a damn dog whistle!"

"How were we supposed to know that those two curses would mix together like that? We're TWELVE! We don't know anything?" Maya was trying as hard as she could not to laugh out loud at her sister's third eye.

"Can we just go to the hospital wing?" Aria whined.

"NO!" Severus and Maya yelled. Detention was not what they had in mind for the rest of the evening.

"Here - I've got something ..." Severus held up a page to Maya.

"That's for reducing moles, Sev."

"Yes, but the one on the next page is for creating blindness. Maybe if I mix some elements together ..." he thought for a moment and muttered to himself for a second. He picked up his wand, pointed it, and said some spells that Maya had never heard before.

"Great, now the eye is small and weird-shaped." Maya threw up her hands.

"And I can't even see out of it! Severus!" Aria moaned.

"Try it on her ears, not her eyes!" Maya suggested.

Severus looked at her doubtfully, and tried again, changing a word here and there. The both looked at Aria expectantly.

"The ringing! It's gone! Thank GOODNESS!" Aria stood and sighed in relief. "Severus, you're amazing."

She looked at Severus and Maya, who both stared at her. Her ears were now as tiny as the third eye on her forehead. Maya looked at Severus. Severus looked at Maya. They both started flipping pages in the antidotes book, knowing full well that detention was in their future.


	3. Chapter 3

PRESENT:

Snape grimaced at the memory. He sat at an open air café in London trying to blend into the background as much as possible. Of course the memory had it's humor: it had also been the moment when experimental spell casting had become a fascination of Snape's. He and Maya had discussed the matter in detention that night.

"That was amazing! I wonder what we could do that the teacher's here don't tell us? Or maybe that they don't even know?" She had said. He had asked what she meant ... they began discussing ideas for spells they could create. Wild ideas, useful ideas, dangerous ideas. It had been child's play at the time, but had grown over the years into a hobby for Maya and a passion for Snape.

"Severus? Severus Snape?" A woman was walking briskly towards Snape, peering at him through small spectacles. She had a conservative muggle-style suit on, and her short brown hair framed her pudgy round face.

"Miss Howe, I assume," he said, not betraying any emotion.

She approached him and grabbed his hand, shaking it enthusiastically.

"Wonderful to see you again! How have things been going?" Snape noted her severe lack of British accent. He recalled that she had been brought up in California, until her acceptance to Hogwarts, her parents' alma mater. The family had then moved back to England. Since Maya had been merely 5 at the time of the move, she had a real English accent, as opposed to her three sisters, who's language betrayed varying degrees of American twinges.

While Aria had always been the most sensible of the Howe sisters, Snape still worried that she might try to hug him or something equally uncomfortable. Thankfully, she shook his hand, and then picked up her luggage, keeping a healthy distance in between them. Snape's ability to sense her thoughts gave him the satisfaction of knowing that she was just as uncomfortable as he was at seeing her sister's old friend. She hid it well under the professional demeanor of a polished politician.

"Well sir? Shall we?" She motioned for him to head out, and she followed a half step behind. They walked in silence until they reached an alleyway on the outskirts of the café. They apparated to Hogsmeade, and walked in silence through the castle gates and up to the front door. When they entered, Dumbledore greeted Aria warmly, and Snape took the opportunity to sneak away quietly.

Once out of earshot of the Great Hall, Snape stalked back down to his dungeons. Seeing Aria again was bringing out certain old emotions he thought he had buried long ago. He sank into his largest, cushiest chair, poured himself a shot of whiskey, downed it, and stared into the fire until it burned to embers, and left him looking at only darkened ashes.

FLASHBACK:

Severus finished unpacking his trunk, and began to shake out his robes. He had just returned from his summer away from Hogwarts: his hair was a little longer, his eyes were a little darker, and he was much taller. He hadn't seen Maya all summer - he hadn't even run into her on the train. Instead, he had run into those idiots Potter, Pettigrew, Lupin and Black. He sneered. Potter and Black seemed to grow more handsome: tan from the summer months, a little older, with flashier smiles. Severus had stared out the window to avoid eye-contact, but of course, they just couldn't avoid the chance to pick on him.

He put the thought out of him mind, and walked down to the common room. As he turned the corner on the stairs, he ran directly into someone. He started to mutter an apology, when he heard Maya's voice from under his stringy hair.

"Sev! There you are!" She hugged him tightly. "Wow! You got so tall!" He looked up, and was slightly taken aback by what he saw. Maya was taller herself, coming almost to 5'8". He knew she had spent the summer in California with Aria, who had decided to go to a muggle university. Her hair was lighter, longer, and her bubbly bangs were gone - grown out to the rest of her hair. She was rosy, and thinner. And, DAMN, thought Severus. She had a figure. Not a woman's figure, but there were definitely more curves there than there had been six months ago. And she was wearing ... perfume? Severus smelled something decidedly floral on her. He caught himself staring.

"Hello, Maya. How was your summer? I see you enjoyed the sun." He raised an eyebrow. Maya blushed, and looked down. Severus cocked his head. He had never made her blush before. How odd.

"I was just coming up to find you. Come on, let's go. I want to show you something amazing." She reached up, and grabbed his hand, and started pulling him down the stairs.

As they ran through the common room, he heard Meena and Athena yell hellos at him. He lifted a hand to wave, but before he could respond, he was already half way up the stairs to the girls dorm.

"Why are you taking me up here?" he demanded.

"Come see!" she practically glowed. She ran into her room, and jumped onto her bed.

"I hardly see anything worth all this running," he huffed, straightening his robes. It was only then that he self consciously noticed she was not wearing robes at all. Muggle clothing. From Aria, he guessed. Suddenly he appreciated Muggles a lot more than he had moments ago. She was wearing the shortest dress he had ever seen on a girl before. A purple paisley tank dress, with big clunky shoes. He nodded approval to himself.

"Look! It's my new best friend!" she squealed. Severus narrowed his eyes in annoyed surprise. For one, he hated the sound of squealing girls. He hoped that his friend had not grown into a creature that he would not be able to be in the same room with. Especially now that she had such a great wardrobe. Secondly, her comment ... a new best friend? What the hell was he? Dragon Dung?

All of the sudden, his worst fears were realized. Something white and fluffy seemed to fly at him from Maya's trunk. He jumped, and landed on the bed next to her. The living cotton ball seemed to follow him, landing on his lap.

"Appian! Come here!" She demanded. The cotton ball complied. "Say hello to Uncle Sev!" She picked it up and put it right into his face.

"You got a pet," he said in disgust. "Lovely."

"This is Appian."she said with a smile. "We found him in California this summer, so I gave him a home. He's going to be with me all year!"

"You mean to tell me that creature is going to accompany us throughout the castle?" Severus tried to look as nauseated as possible.

"Don't look so horrified. Not EVERYWHERE, obviously." She rolled her eyes. "Plus, there are some great benefits to having a dog."

"Name one."

"He bites people."

"That's barbaric."

"Did I tell you Sirius Black stole half of my sandwich on the train today?"

"What?"

"Yeah. Half my sandwich. Gone. So I had Appian chase him down the hall." She smiled broadly. To this, even Severus had to smile.

"As long as you keep that vile creature away from my dress robes, I suppose I can learn to accept it's presence."

"Deal."

She smiled at him. He took a mental picture. He could get used to this.


	4. Chapter 4

PRESENT DAY:

"No. I absolutely cannot permit that." Dumbledore looked intently over his desk at Aria.

"This is what HAS to be done. Voldemort respects strength. He wants power. Power over your side of this war. My presence will represent that. He WILL grant me an audience."

"You think you can just waltz in there like it's the Ministry of Magic and have a chat with the Dark Lord over tea?" McGonagall straightened in her chair, and looked at Aria as if her third eye had grown back. "Miss Howe. You don't seem to understand the way the dark Lord handles visitors," She huffed.

Aria sighed. "You asked for my help. I'm a diplomat and a politician. I've dealt with very dangerous criminals before. I mean, Saddam Hussain isn't the nicest man on the planet." Aria folded her arms across her chest and met Dumbledore's stare.

"Saddam Hussain, however," interrupted Snape with a swish of his hands, "Would not hex you into the next existence just as soon as look at you."

Aria put her head in her hands. "Severus, try not to talk about things you don't know anything about."

"MISS HOWE," he answered more coldly than even he thought possible, "I would make the same caution to you. You know nothing of the Dark Lord, nothing of his ..." he shuddered, and turned his head quickly back to a neutral position.

Aria knew Snape well enough to know that she had hit a nerve. She hadn't seen him in close to twenty-five years, but knowing, as she did, what a sixteen-year-old Snape was capable of, she was not anxious to see what a thirty-something Snape was able and willing to do under the right circumstances. However, her mind was made up.

"I'm sorry, Headmaster. When I discussed this mission with my supervisors in the Magical AND Non-Magical hierarchies, we all came to the same conclusion. We need to know his motives. We need to be able to have someone speak to him on a personal level to begin the negotiating process."

"Negotiations?" Snape looked at her unbelievingly. He turned to Dumbledore. "Really, Headmaster, this can't possibly be what you had in mind."

Dumbledore grimaced.

"Aria, let me explain something about our situation." Dumbledore began. "I asked you here to explain all the details of ths war, not to incite you to go off, without any experience or prior knowledge of the enemy, and be the hero of the hour. Negotiations with Voldemort ... it's a tricky idea..."

He was cut off by a very irate Snape. "We don't want to NEGOTIATE with him. We want to KILL him."

"Ahhhh," Aria leaned back in her chair. "I see what kind of mission this is." She looked from teacher to teacher. "I'm a diplomat. Not an assassin."

To her extreme annoyance, Snape made a strangled sound between a guffaw and a choke. "Headmaster, if you please? I have had enough of this nonsense. I understand your sentiments to bring us allies from far shores, but THIS," he signaled rudely at Aria, "is a waste of ALL of our time."

"Severus, please be seated." motioned Dumbledore patiently. He gave Snape a look, Snape regarded him, and then begrudgingly sat and seemed to vanish as far into his robes as it was possible for him to go. His anger was radiating off of him in waves.

"Headmaster, without actually seeing first-hand what Voldemort is capable of, I will not be able to do the job you have asked of me. Americans are far more ..." she searched for the right word. "Far more in need of persuasion than you all seem to be." She shot Severus a look that said, dangerously, 'this is my turf, stay the hell off.'

She continued. "For you all, this is a war of good against evil. For many people in America that I am able to turn in your direction, the concept of good against evil doesn't have all that much sway. I'm afraid people will need something emotional and melodramatic to cling to. Or, more likely, at least with the witches and wizards who will be of any real use to you, financial risk will be a determining factor as to the extent of their involvement."

"Why don't you tell your people that the Dark Lord plans on exterminating all traces of anything of 'tainted' blood. That makes up about, what, 99 of everyone in your barbaric country?" Snape muttered under his breath.

"We turned Jews away from our country during World War Two, even though there's a huge Judaism population already in existence. The people don't make the decisions, the government does." She shook her head. "Without my report, our government won't stand behind your cause. From what I understand, without us, you cannot win this battle. I NEED to go in there, to evaluate the threat. That is simply how our system works." She gave him a sad smile.

He said nothing. Instead he felt an urge to vomit. He simply tuned out the rest of the conversation, and stood when dismissed to return to his quarters, walking limp like the living dead.


	5. Chapter 5

FLASHBACK:

"What is your sister doing in California?" Severus asked Maya. They were both huddled over a cauldron in a quiet part of the dungeon. She had long robes covering her clothing and her long hair had been pulled into a braid, but Severus could still smell the floral scent emanating off of her. Slightly erotic, but most distracting.

"She's studying political science. She wants to work for their government." Maya answered with obvious lack of interest in Aria's ambitions, continuing to stir the potion. She looked over her shoulder, said, "accio frog!" with her want, and a small toad from the corner of the dungeon came flying to her hands. With a passing expression of guilt, she quickly dropped it into the swirling potion.

"That was a green frog, not a brown frog. I thought we discussed that it had to be a brown frog," Severus accused, hands on his hips.

"Green frogs are used for promoting health. Brown frogs are NOT. If we want this thing to work, the drinker will have to be more healthy than not, or it will settle in QUITE soon."

"But the brown frog will make the effects MUCH worse."

"But the green frog buys us time. If someone gets sick right off, people will know we poisoned them. If they don't get sick until a day later, no one suspects it was us who did it."

"Maya, we don't even know if this WORKS. We can't begin to perfect it until we have a basic recipe." They glared at each other for a moment. A friendly glare, but a glare non the less.

"Anyways," she continued stirring, and Severus pouted over his ingredients. "She wants to work for the government. Muggle/Magic relations, or something. I have no idea. But the university is so beautiful. And the weather is just DIVINE. You know, I walked on the beach every day this summer. No rain, no clouds, no nothing."

"Everyone in Hogwarts can tell that you spent time in the sun, Maya. You're tanner than Sathaye Bishnoi." He referred to an Indian student with particularly smooth, milky chocolate skin tones.

"Sathaye Bishnoi ... now there's someone who would be a good test subject." Maya wrinkled her nose.

"I thought we were testing this on the Potter boy?" Severus looked disappointed.

"Really Sev, we have plenty to test on SEVERAL people." She smirked. "And anyways, wouldn't it be most fun to test it on Mr. Pale, run-out of the room boy?"

"Lupin?" he said with interest.

"I thought you hated all of them."

"I hate Black and POTTER," he spat. "Lupin is a coward and a cretin, but not evil like the other two."

"Well, I guess I would really rather try some sort of veritaserum on Sathaye anyways," she remarked. "You know he's been hinting all over the place that he lost his virginity this summer. I, for one, think it's all an elaborate ruse."

"Maya, he's twelve years old. Of course it's a lie." Snape rolled his eyes at his companion.

"So we'll wait a few years. Til everyone starts shagging, and then we'll do it."

"And then we'll do what?" he asked mischievously. "Shag?"

He was amused to note that she splashed some of the potion at him after that comment.

"No, Sev! Before we try to... oh sod off." She breathed in deeply the aroma of the potion which, thanks to the addition of some pumpkin and plain sugar, smelled like pumpkin cocktail. They stood in silence for a moment.

"You know, I won't be able to be a guinea pig for your little 'virginity veritaserum'," he said bitterly after a moment. "I highly doubt anyone will shag me." He snorted at the thought.

"Eh, I don't know that that's the case." she said, as nicely as possibly. "I mean, you're much better looking this year that you were last year. If that trend continues, who knows? You'll be breaking as many hearts as Black by your 7th year." She waggled her brows at him from under thick goggles.

"Oh please. Women seem to flock away from me like plague."

"First of all, there are no women in your life. We're TWELVE, remember? And of course they ignore you. You're always with ME. They're all afraid of me."

"Oh, as if you're all that intimidating."

"Would YOU come up to me if you weren't my trusty sidekick?" She grinned.

"SIDEKICK!" He guffawed.

"Absolutely." She smiled. "Now concentrate." They were silent for most of the rest of the evening, excepting the sound of the bubbling contents of their pot.

PRESENT:

Snape sat in his study, again staring at his small green memory orb. He saw the two of them, standing over the caldron. He had an expression that was half-way between a grimace and a grin as he remembered what had happened when they had 'tested' their potion on some of their classmates. Nothing horrible, mind you. They were, after all, only second years. The effects had been rather humorous though. Almost as bad as those damn Weasley's and their sickness candies, or whatever the bloody hell they were. Not as strong as Snape would have liked, but, as Maya had said, they hadn't gotten caught. He thought about it, and realized that he hadn't gotten caught a lot because of her. She knew how to be sneaky. Not that he wasn't able to be sneaky on his own - he had managed to hide a few things from her... for a while anyway. He sighed. He had been so taken with her for such a long time. He almost laughed each time he saw the pictures of her as a young girl, compared to what she ended up looking like at eighteen.

A grotesque thought suddenly struck him. She had been living in his mind as an eighteen year old girl. They all had. When he saw Aria, that bubble had been burst. Of COURSE ... it had been over two decades, hadn't it? Aria went from being a shapely brunette to a pudgy, cold-looking woman with wrinkles and glasses. She was close to fifty, of course, where as Maya would be closer to his own age. He thought about the others. Athena had been a round girl to begin with: round and blonde with a bloody tattoo on her ankle. He was sure she was ashy and fat now, he snorted. Her tattoo stretched all to blazes on her fat little calves. Next was Meena. Meena had been a dancer and an athlete. He had always admired Meena: she was more of a slytherin than any of the sisters. Strong and Ambitious, she had dominated the Slytherin quidditch team for all seven of her years. Muscular and taught, she had fluffy, thick blonde hair that always bobbed over her shoulders. He tried, but he couldn't imagine her as anything other than the young girl with the evil twinkle in her eye that she had once been.

Maya had been the tallest of the sisters. Tall, blonde, blue eyes, olivey skin. She was shapely and athletic: the complete opposite of him. He had loved her, boyish love of his best friend. They had started out together as two shy misfits. As they had grown, she had gotten more and more beautiful, more and more talented, more and more desirable. He was shocked at how easily he could turn her girlish form into a haggish old woman. True, he hadn't heard from her since she had moved back to California after graduating, but he was sure she had become a typical muggle middle-aged woman, no different from Molly Weasley. Round in all the wrong places, with too much trust in lifting/youthening/whitening/tanning potions. He sighed at himself in annoyance, and looked again into the orb. He saw something that made him laugh out loud. Maya scowling at him in the nastiest manner she could muster, trying to cover her face which was red, splotchy and enormously bulbous. He stood next to her, laughing like crazy. Several of her friends (who had become Snape's acquaintances by proxy) were in the background laughing as well. He looked closer, swirling the ball around him to get a better look. Ah, yes, there was Heather Mahi, an unattractive stick of a girl who spent most of her time running laps around the lake, and her older cousin, Jen Cuo. Both girls had a decidedly Cambodian, or some such place, look about them, dark skin, dark hair. Jen used a curling charm on hers, unfortunately, which gave her a bouffant not unlike Hermione Granger's. Both were slytherins, though not much had become of either of them, that he could remember.

FLASHBACK:

"Okay, guys. Ready to be astounded?" Maya looked from the bored Heather to the exuberant Jen to the uncomfortable Severus.

"What is this again?" Heather asked uncertainly.

"It's a Potion I've invented for making your skin amazingly smooth and fabulous." she answered. Jen clapped her hands.

"If it works, I will be your first customer."

"What's wrong with YOUR skin?" Severus had asked sullenly. While Jen did resemble a black chicken that had been put under a blow-drier too long, he had to admit that her skin was fairly nice.

"Sev. Please. If this works, we will ALL be better off." Maya put some hair behind an ear. He smirked. It was the beginning of their third year, and it not escaped anyone's notice that Maya had developed a rather punctuating case of oily acne. Severus had told her on many occasions that she was lucky to have something that would go away in a few years rather than his permanently pale sallowness, but she wouldn't let it go.

"Ready?" She took a small swig of the stuff, and swallowed with hardly a twinge. They all sat in silence for a moment or two, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, Maya began looking through her notes.

"Sev? Help me here. It can't just cause NOTHING to happen. I mean, there are actual chemicals in here. Not just organic ingredients."

"You put MUGGLE chemicals in there?" Heather asked. "Count me OUT. I don't trust that shit farther than I can throw it."

"What did you use?" Severus asked uncertainly. Muggle chemicals were never his strong point.

"Well, I used a basic potion for smoothing ... like the stuff you spray on your clothes."

"You swallowed an ironing potion!" Jen squealed. "Maya! That isn't how this stuff works!"

"Bullocks, Maya. What else did you do?" Severus looked through her notes, recognizing very few of the ingredients.

"Well, the smoothing potion, but then also some concentrated sunlight charm...and some penicilliny-type stuff. Plus some Benzo ... benzo-alla-something or another."

"I'm not even going to ask why you did that." he scoffed. "I have no idea what this will do to you. It looks to me like you made a smoothing potion that will fade you clothes, and then kill the bacteria on them. Not very useful, especially when ingested directly."

He looked up at his disappointed friend, and his eyes went wide. It was only then did he notice that Jen and Heather had also become deathly silent.

"What?" she asked.

"Maya!" Jen yelled. Severus cringed. Yes, she may have been the Quidditch captain, and yes, maybe yelling was a handy skill to have on the pitch, but it was dreadfully irritating when she kept screaming Maya's name. "Your face is a MESS."

"More than before?" she asked, horrified.

"Yes, my dear, more than before." came Severus's unkind reply. It was true. Her face was bubbling red as if the skin were a Valentine's Day polyjuice potion. It was beginning to sizzle and sputter like a frying red pepper. "It appears that concentrated sunlight was a bad idea."

Heather held up a mirror. "I must agree with Severus. You look like a firework."

Jen snorted. "I am NOT your first customer."

"What the hell is happening? Severus?" She looked at him in annoyance.

"Are you in any pain?"

"I can't feel a thing. Oh no. Ew." She had touched her face, and a large sheet of skin had just peeled off and landed at her feet. Jen jumped away from it spastically.

"Thank Neptune you only took a small sip." Heather said between giggles.

"How can you be laughing at a time like this!" Maya was looking disgustedly at the skin that began to flake off her face as the bubbling dies down. "This isn't funny, it' disgusting! Go get me some ointment or something! Quick!"

Heather raced to her room, and came back with some sort of creamy substance.

"Here," she said breathlessly. "It's a regenerative cream for cuts and such. I stole it from the nurse." She tossed it to Maya.

"Wait, I don't know if you can use that," Severus choked out, a funny thought having just occurred to him. "It might regenerate more skin bubbles. It isn't going to just ... CURE you of your creative potion." He laughed, and Maya sneered at him. A flash went off, and Jen smacked Heather, who had just taken a picture.

By this point, Maya's face had completely stopped bubbling. Most of the skin had flaked off, and she looked like a burned tomato. A very smooth burned tomato. Reddish, ruddy and dry, like a nut.

"Great. Just great." She sighed, and looked at her friends. "Now what?"

Her friends all shrugged, still giggling slightly.

"Let's think about this logically." Severus offered. "You fried all the oil and bacteria off your skin, more or less, and it all flaked off. If you re-generate it, it'll just regenerate the old skin you had. Who knows what the two skin types would do when one is trying to grow over the other."

"Wait," said Heather. "Can't we make something that will ... get rid of the burn? Because really, the skin is quite nice except for the reddish color."

"I can try." He flipped through one of his books. "But I don't know how to fix a CHEMICAL burn." He stopped at a basic potion. "I can make this in a few moments. I can't account for what will happen though." He rolled his eyes, and wandered off to find materials.

When he returned, he prepared the potion while the three girls took various pictures of Maya in her state of redness.

"You look like a dwarf!" Jen had exclaimed.

"A dwarf with an amazing complexion," Heather had added dryly.

"DONE." He announced. "Put this on your face."

Maya quickly dipped her hands into the mush, and began to rub it all over her hands and face. "Oh, that stings! Ouch!" She hopped around for a moment, fanning herself. "Ahh, okay. Better." She paused. "Now what?"

"It's not doing anything, Sev. Make it go faster." Heather prodded him from behind.

"I take no responsibility for what happens," he warned, and pointed his wand, muttering a reaction speeding spell.

"Oh, wow. That feels amazing!" Maya said loudly. "Like a cold breeze." The cream itself started to melt from a viscous, white, cottage-cheesy syrup to a watery Vaseline, and then it seemed to burn off completely. Underneath, Maya's skin was ... perfect. Severus breathed a sigh of relief. With the experimenting that he and Maya did, they more often than not found themselves in the hospital wing. It was always nice to have things turn out all right for once.

"Oh, WOW!" Jen screeched. "Bloody perfect! I WILL be your first customer!"

"You will not," Heather smacked her. "Are you joking?"

"Look at how great she looks! I mean, aside form the reddish spots, and the gooeyness, her skin looks pretty healthy to me."

"I suggest you take a long bath in this stuff, and then perform the necessary charms on yourself." Severus spoke to Maya over the cousin's arguing.

"You can't do it for me?"

"Unless you would like me to start bathing with you, no." he said through a smirk. "You're in advanced charms. I think you can handle it."

"Sev, you are a genius." She hugged him quickly. He pretended to be mortified that the nut-creature was touching him, but he couldn't help but think how nice she would look once the redness was gone. Her entire body would be that creamy bronze color ... He focused back on the cousins.

As predicted, Jen was bottling some of Maya's potion, and copying down the page number for the burn cream. Heather was rolling her eyes. Severus sighed, not understanding why girls would willingly go through such a painful, awkward experience for nice skin.

A few weeks later, every Slytherin girl (and a good number of the boys) in the castle had a perfect complexion, and Maya was looking into a magical patent.


	6. Chapter 6

PRESENT:

Snape heard a knock on his door. He sighed, and put down his memory orb.

"Yes," he called rudely. He was in no mood for company.

"Severus?" he heard Aria's voice from the hall. She stepped gingerly into his study.

"Miss Howe." He answered.

She shook her head with a small smile. "What is this Miss Howe business?" She chortled. "Since when did you stop calling me Aria?"

"I should not be so presumptuous as to assume a level a informality when I have not seen you in close to twenty five years." Came his cold reply.

She dropped into a chair. "Sev. Please. Call me Aria. I'm not about to stop calling you Severus."

He snorted, but did not reply.

"Look. I came here for two very specific purposes. Neither of which you will find enjoyable at all, so you may as well just listen and get it over with." She had a smile playing about her lips.

"And such torture shall be...?"

"First, I came to tell you that I do intend to have a little ... tete-a-tete with Voldemort." She held up her hand to stop him from speaking. "You can't talk me out of it. Don't try. What you can do is give me some helpful advice."

"The only advice I have for you is to abandon this foolhardy mission. This isn't why the Headmaster asked you here."

"Like I said before," she answered haughtily, "I know my job. I know how to do my job. I guarantee that this meeting will be helpful to you all."

"He hates anything having to do with the Muggle world. Your little attempt at diplomacy will be no different. Even if you are a pureblood."

She sighed resolutely. "So you won't help me?"

He turned to look at her full in the face.

"The operative term here is won't. It isn't that I won't help you, Aria, it's that I simply Can't."

She nodded at him, knowing this was as much as she would be able to get out of him. He had changed in such a strange way: he was still grumpy and dark, but where the boy she had known had a streak of life, this older Severus Snape seemed to have lost that spark. She looked at her hands for a moment, and then cheerfully spoke to him again.

"Very well then, since that's settled, let me get on to my next order of business, which I'm sure you'll hate even more."

"I can hardly contain my excitement."

"Look." She handed him a stack of something in an envelope.

"What on Earth is this?"

She winked. "Pictures of the family. Don't even tell me you aren't even the slightest bit curious to see how Meena looks after all these years," she asked smugly. He rolled his eyes.

"I imagine she looks very similar, if not aged, as we all are." But he opened the envelope and began thumbing through the pictures.

"Sorry they aren't animated. Muggle camera, you know."

He snorted again. The first few were of Aria: Aria at work, Aria with some important looking men and women in muggle suits, Aria with some members of the American magical Government. He raised an eyebrow. The next few were of Quidditch Players. Professional Quidditch players.

"Quidditch fan, are you?" he muttered dryly.

"Athena is a healer for Ireland's team. We go to games quite often. Nasty business at the Quidditch cup a while back," she added gruffly.

Severus looked at her sharply. This must be why Dumbledore had asked her here. She knows about the war through Athena, who apparently was still in the country.

The next photos were of Athena herself, hovering awkwardly on a broom near the practicing Irish Quidditch team. There were several of her with a daft-looking blonde man who must have been her husband. Snape snorted again. He hadn't been wrong when he pictured her as having rounded out a bit. She was quite the squat little thing. Blonde hair shorter, the same confused expression on her face.

The next picture had the three sisters standing together at the pitch. He looked at Meena. She looked older. But not unpleasantly older. She had aged well. Her smile was gleeful, and her body was still athletic and healthy. Her hair was longer, and curlier. She looked very stern, though, with an air of power.

"And what did Meena find herself doing after graduation?"

"Business, of course. Works at the office of the attorneys of the bar, or whatever it is you call them here. Went to Law school at Oxford. Then went again at the Laffman's. Quite the educated one, isn't she?" She referred to Laffman's, the wizarding school of law in Northern England. "She may have been born across the pond, but she always was an English girl at heart. She's married now. Meena McWharten Has a child. Leah. Cute girl. Should be coming hereto school in a few years." Aria sighed.

Snape grimaced. An attorney. He should have known. She was quite perfect for the position. How old was she now? Fortyish, he should think. His languid thought were brought to an absolute halt when he looked at the next photo.

Maya Howe. There she was. Was it still Howe? He doubted it. She was just standing there, staring at him. She was bigger. No, not bigger, just ... shapelier. She finally had the body of a woman, but she still had the face of a child. He placed the picture at the bottom of the stack, and wordlessly handed them back to Aria. This woman was causing him more problems than he cared to admit, to her, or himself.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Same as always. I don't own it. Except the stuff that I made up. Like Aria and her sisters. Things of that nature.

Stuff actually starts to happen now. I promise.

Aria Howe walked through London until she reached a pub called 'McMarken's'. She had never been there, but it seemed like a dodgy place. Before Snape had thrown her out the previous night, he had offered a few very helpful words.

"No doubt the Dark Lord already knows you wish to grant audience with him. Go to McMarken's in London. His ... PEOPLE ... are usually there in abundance. I'm sure you won't wait long to be in a very big mess."

She knew he feared this Voldemort person, and she knew what to expect from a situation like this. She was neutral, she kept reminding herself. I'm just here to talk. She walked into the pub.

Once inside, she noticed he had been right. Everyone who sat in here looked like they came right out of prison. She walked up to the bar boldly, and ordered a gin and tonic. No use going thirsty while she waited.

A while later, a man walked into the pub. He looked around, and spied her at the bar, doing a crossword puzzle. He sneered, and walked up to her. He wasted no time with formalities, only grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and yanked her around.

"Come with me," he said through his teeth. He walked toward the back rooms of the pub. Aria straightened her jacket, smoothed her hair, touched her glasses back up her nose, and walked back to where the man was standing. He shoved her through a door unceremoniously, not even giving Aria a chance to wish that she had brought someone with her to watch her back.

Aria was completely unprepared for what came next. The room she stepped into was not a room. It was a transporter of some sort - she felt herself being whirled through darkness, almost like a forced apparation.

When she finally stopped spinning, she realized she was on her hands and knees in a cemetery. It was uncharacteristically dark, even though it had been no later than noon in London. She was vaguely irate, knowing that she was sure to get an unsightly grass stain on her new suit. She shook her head and haughtily stood up to brush herself off. She was surprised to feel a cold hand grasp her wrist.

"Excuse me," she snapped, pulling her hand away. She turned to see who she was addressing. The greasy man who had accompanied her to this ... place. ... had been joined by another man, larger, with a nasty glint of a mean streak in his eyes.

"You want to see the Dark Lord, dontcha?" the new man asked in a bitter cockney.

"Voldemort, you mean?" She looked at him firmly. Don't show fear, she chided, lifting her head a little higher. "My name is Aria Howe. I am the Liaison between the Ministry of Wizarding and the Non-magical government of the United States of America. I'm a trained diplomat and I have -"

"I don't care who you are, and neither does the Dark Lord," he boomed, lowering his scruffy chin into her face. "You'll keep your mouth shut, if you know what's good for you."

"I'm here with diplomatic immunity. You can't threaten me. I have the United States Government behind me. AND the British Ministry of Magic." She paused, darkening. "Don't write a check your ass can't cash." She sneered up at him.

"The United States? What do we care about them? This is England, you stupid cow." The larger man grabbed her wrist again, and began leading her towards a large manor on a hill.

"I can make it on my OWN, thank you. You will keep your hands off me!" She jerked away again, and reached for her wand.

"EXPELLIARMUS!" Yelled the smaller man from behind her. He smiled, catching her wand in his free hand. "You must understand, Madame LIAISON," his voice simply dripping with sarcasm. "The Dark Lord does not meet anyone who is armed." He winked. "Procedure." He pocketed her wand.

Aria stared daggers at the man. "The American Magical Embassy will be hearing about this," she threatened.

Both men laughed heartily.

"Let them!" The smaller man said through chuckles. "They can't do anything to stop us."

Aria clenched her teeth, and stomped up the road to the manor, the two goons walking a step behind, wands pointed at her back.

Aria walked through a final large bronzed door to reach a dark room lit by a few candles, a lantern and moonlight shining through the open window. There was a dark figure sitting in a monstrous chair in the middle fo the floor near a fireplace where only ashes smoldered lightly. She lifted her head and walked as proudly and menacingly as she dared toward the figure in the center. A short, fat lump of a man stood sniveling next to the chair.

"Miss Howe," a hissing came from the shadowy figure on the 'throne'. "I have heard that you wish to speak with me." There came a slight wheezing chuckle from his direction. "How can I help you?"

Aria stepped forward, and stood in front of the dark wizard. "Sir, my name is Aria Howe. I'm the-" she was interrupted by a flash of light that hit her hard in the chest.

"Miss Howe, I don't care who you are. All I know about you is that you have an amazing ability to waste my time."

Aria stood slowly, still reeling from the painful blast that had knocked her onto the floor. She shook her head, and looked at Voldemort in shock and anger. Voldemort chuckled, and then silenced immediately. He stood, his robes hitting the floor.

"You're stronger than I expected. Sectusempra usually rips women like you apart." He strode towards her purposefully. Aria didn't realize she was backing away until she ran into the stone wall behind her.

"Lord Voldemort," she began, horrified to hear how shaken her voice was. "I'm here from the United States ... The Ministry of magic here and abroad seems to feel that someone needs to understand your motives, so as to expedite a peaceful conclusion to this, uh, situation ..."

"Don't TOY with me, WOMAN." Voldemort growled at her, sticking his wand to her throat. "The American Ministry would never get involved in the British failure of a mudblooded wizarding debacle that is our ministry. As you know, they're interested in who pays them off, and the state that the Ministry is in now, I can personally assure you that your American government will take NO interest in us. Who sent you?"

"My Lord," came a squeaky voice behind him. The lumpy man was speaking.

"Yes Wormtail?" he said impatiently.

"Aria Howe is friends with Severus Snape!" Aria's head snapped towards him in fear. Who was this pitiful creature?

The Dark Lord smiled a hideous toothy grin as he looked deeply into her eyes. "Is she, now?"

"Her sister was a good friend of Severus when they were children," the sniveling man continued.

"Is this true, Miss Howe?" he sneered.

"I know Professor Snape, yes. He was friends with my sister. But, I live in America. I'm not in contact with him." She held her breathe, not knowing if her association with Snape was negative or positive.

Voldemort grabbed her throat in his cold hand, still holding his wand to her neck. "Dumbledore sent you, didn't he. Why he would sacrifice you to me is beyond me. What do you have that he tempts me with?"

"I came of my own accord!" she blurted out. She realized in chagrin that this was very true.

"Then you are a fool, like every other mudblood American woman I have ever known." He turned and stalked away. Aria sighed in relief, but it was in vain. Before she had a chance to inhale any oxygen, Voldemort had turned at his her again, this time with a blast that she felt rip through her entire body. She screamed and whimpered in pain. Another blast came, and another, and another. She could hear angry yelling, but was in too much pain to even open her eyes. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she felt a presence standing over her.

"Open you eyes," a slithery voice demanded.

"I ... I ..."

"DO AS I SAY."

Aria opened one swollen eye enough to see the dark lord and the lumpy man standing over her.

"Why do you not bleed?" Voldemort snorted in angry frustration.

Aria merely wheezed, and tried to roll on her side. She managed to pull herself to her elbows, and then collapse again on her side. She looked at Voldemort, knowing for sure that she was dead. Until something seemed to catch his eye.

"Well, well, well. Look what we have here," he reached out to Aria's chest, and she felt a tug at he back of her neck. She saw through a haze that the wizard had pulled off the long but plain silver chain that hung around her neck. She had no idea why a wizard so powerful was settling for robbery of an old family heirloom. The necklace was a bloodstone, a deep red stone in a pear-shaped setting in the hilt of a silver sword trinket.

"I see, Albus, I see," he whispered to himself. He stood, and pocketed the jewelry. "Wormtail!"

"Yes, my Lord?"

"If she is indeed friends with Severus, let us have Severus take her back to her friends."

"You will leave her alive, my lord?"

"She has something I want." He said cryptically. Aria closed her eyes again, sure she would not live to see Severus.

"What are you going to do with me?" Aria managed to croak out.

The Dark Lord waved his hand at her, and the two men appeared from the shadows, and pulled her to her feet.

"You can't," she began. "You can't! I'm a diplomat! You can't kill me!" As they lurched her toward the door, she cried out with all the rancor she could mange, "That isn't how tyranny works!"

Snape, Dumbledore and McGonigall sat silently and pensively in Dumbledore's study. It had been more than several hours since Aria had left on her mission, and no one had heard anything of her. They feared the worst. Suddenly, Snape dropped the snifter he had been drinking from in Surprise, and grabbed his arm.

"Severus?" Dumbledore looked at his inc concern.

"I fear, Headmaster, that the Dark Lord calls," he said through clenched teeth. He pulled up a sleeve, and they saw that the dark mark on his forearm was glowing in an eerie dark black.

"This is the news we have been waiting for - Severus, be careful."

Snape nodded, and whisked out of the room.

A few moments later, Snape stood in the company of the Dark Lord.

"You called, my Lord?" he bowed deeply.

"I have an old friend for you, Severus," Voldemort said cryptically. Snape wisely said nothing, and kept his head down. He heard a door open and slam, and some dragging behind him. He didn't dare look up - his heart beat quickly in his chest, sure that the mangled body of Aria would be thrown at his feet. Gods only knew what would happen to him after that.

"Your friend, Miss Howe, has decided to spend some time with me. You will take her back to your headmaster. I'm not amused." He saw a body fall at his feet.

"What is she doing here, my Lord?" Snape asked, looking at the body, his tongue in his throat.

"She was trying to be bold, Severus. A mistake that almost cost her her life."

Snape slowed his pulse in his chest. "I will take care of it, My Lord." He bowed deeply again, and leaned down to grab the barely breathing, unconscious woman in his arms. He was so determined to get Aria out of the lair of the beast he didn't even notice Voldemort gingerly fingering a silver and red pendant in his fingers.


	8. Chapter 8

FLASHBACK

Severus was in an awkward position. He sat on Maya's bed, his robes forgotten, thrown over the chair of her desk in the corner. Maya shared her room with Meena and Athena, both of whom had Quidditch practice. Maya was stalking around the room, tossing things around in rage. Severus leaned back against the uncomfortable headboard, looking at the ceiling. Maya, as it was, was whipping her long hair around her shoulders. She wasn't wearing muggle clothes for a change: the problem with her 'respectable' garb, Severus noted, was that as an early bloomer, Maya tended to make even the most conservative dresses seem slightly naughty. This outfit was no different - a plain knee-length skirt that was an off-white stiff material and a blue bodice that Severus knew should not be as tight as it was around certain regions of her chest. She had a blue floral scarf thrown haphazardly around her neck, and predictably, blue muggle shoes that she had stolen or borrowed from someone named 'Chuck Taylor'.

"I mean, this is getting ridiculous, isn't it? He won't sit next to me in class, he won't even touch me, even when there isn't anyone around!" She fell over backwards onto her bed, narrowly missing Severus's feet. "Am I so repulsive!" She closed her eyes and threw a hand over her face dramatically. She had taken to wearing this powdery blue substance on her eyelids that Severus personally found to be a bit excessive.

He cleared his throat. "You are decidedly not repulsive, Maya." he said slowly. He hated these discussions. Maya had recently found herself in the most immature version of a childhood relationship possible, in Severus's mind, with a Hufflepuff of all people. His name was Knave, or Neville, or Nathan or something of the sort. Severus couldn't care less.

"Then what the hell is his problem?"

"We have a love-hate relationship with the opposite sex at this age." Severus answered dryly. "We want you, yet we fear you."

"YOU aren't afraid of me. Why should he be?" She turned on her side and gazed up at him. Severus lifted an eyebrow. There were times when his schoolboy crush on her was unbearable, but at times like these, he barely stifled the urge to laugh at her.

"Why do you waste your TIME with him? He isn't very clever, not altogether attractive, and his voice is unbearably squeaky." Severus picked invisible lint off his robes. "He dresses like an ogre."

Maya snorted. "Sev, just wait til you like someone. Then you'll understand." She said it with an air of infuriating superiority.

"What is there to know, pray tell, that I seem to be so naive to?" he balked.

Maya sighed, and turned her body so that she was laying next to her friend on her stomach. Severus moved to make room for her. "I dunno - He smells good. I like the way he smells. And when he actually DOES get the courage to touch me and hug me, it feels so ... exciting."

Severus paused, closed his eyes, and took stock of the fact that he was breathing in deeply the scent of Maya's floral perfume. He noted that in the past few months she had taken to switching back and forth between the garden scent and a spicy vanilla that he found intoxicating to the nostrils.

"Mere physical attraction. It will happen a million times in your life. Get used to it, and stop acting like such a goose." He looked down at her. "I mean, really, what do you two talk about?"

"Quidditch. And football." She paused. "And sometimes about classes and things. And the serials in the Quibbler. We both read those." She stopped, rolled her eyes dramatically and threw her head into her friend's lap. "Oh Sev! It is only physical! I find him unimaginative and dreary, to be honest! And here I thought I would be much older before I would have a love-less relationship! That's the thing of middle-aged housewives, isn't it? How did this happen!"

"I don't know what you really intend to gain by continuing in this vein with Neville."

"Nate," she replied in a muffled tone.

"Excuse me. Nate." He sneered and pondered if he should put his hands on her hair, or her arms, or her back ... he floundered with them before deciding on a pat on the shoulder. "Quite frankly, this tryst is making you entirely emotionally unmanageable. Forget about him. Let's go to Hogsmeade."

Maya sat up and looked at Severus. "I thought maybe I would get my first kiss out of this. You realize I'm one of the last girls in our year to never have been kissed?"

"I find that difficult to believe, since I know very few of the BOYS in our year have ever actually snogged anyone. Unless these girls are finding themselves intimate with the 6th and 7th years, I don't know who they are kissing. Each other, perhaps...?"

Maya smacked him on the arm.

"And anyway," he continued recklessly. "If it ever comes to the point in which you are the VERY last person to take that final step into the realm of 'those-who-have-been-snogged', I'm sure you could find someone to take pity on you." He paused. "I would be happy to make sure you don't die an old maid." he finished with a roll of his eyes.

She smiled. "You're very sweet, Sev. Thank you." She rolled of the bed and grabbed each of their robes, throwing his at him. "Come on then. Hogsmeade it is. I'll buy you a butterbeer." She grabbed his hand, and pulled him to his feet. He followed her blindly, reminding himself to breathe.

PRESENT:

"I'm very sorry, but I really need to get by. I'm supposed to be in here!" A high-tinted whine was coming from the hall. Whoever the voice belongs to had run into prefects that Dumbledore had guarding the doors to the hospital wing. No one had been admitted since Snape had swooped in earlier, the Liaison between magical and muggle affairs of the United States crumpled in his arms. While she was beaten up pretty badly, Madame Pompfrey was having a difficult time finding remedies for the curses she had bee hit with. Almost her entire body was racked with internal bleeding, but she had little more than some minor cuts and scratches on her body. She was mostly in and out of consciousness, so Snape and Dumbledore had been able to get very little information out of her. They stood in a corner now, discussing this set of events.

"How she even managed to find Voldemort is beyond me," Dumbledore said to Snape, looking at him directly in the eye.

"That was, unfortunately, my fault. I gave her the location of a pub in the west end of London that is a local haunt for some of Voldemort's lower-profile minions."

"You lead her into this?"

"She was set and intent on finding him. Of course he knew that - and I much preferred that she went to seek him on her own - away from here, away from me, away from any connection to the Order. Her little stunt was dangerous, ill-advised and ..." he shook his head. "Either way, the ramifications could have been much worse had she lead him to us." He folded his arms over his chest and sneered.

"I believe the ramifications are worse than any of us could guess," Dumbledore said sadly. He nodded in Aria's direction. "She should be dead."

Snape pursed his lips and nodded. "I have no idea why she was left alive. Very uncharacteristic of the Dark Lord."

"We must find out why - Aria could be in more danger - we could all be in danger."

They stopped their discussion when they heard the Prefect at the door arguing with the high whiney voice. They marched over to the door to see Athena Howe Dane arguing animatedly, broom (a rather nice one at that) in hand. Her sister, Mean McWharton, stood imposingly behind her in the most expensive and well-tailored suit and robes Snape had seen on anyone who wasn't a Malfoy. Snape looked from Athena to Mean to Dumbledore in horror.

"What are they doing here?" he hissed.

"The family had to be notified of Aria's ... mishap."

"Yes, but why are they HERE?" his voice had a frantic quality to it that Dumbledore found rather amusing in spite of the situation at hand.

"Severus, really. Don't be so alarmed that some of your old friends are here." He paused and his lips quirked up. "Count your blessings - as I remember, there were four sisters, not three." He seemed to wink slightly and stepped forward to allow the two women entrance to see their sister. Snape sulked behind him, taking his meaning immediately, and feeling a strange pull between relief and disappointment that Maya was missing from the equation. The two sisters had not even noticed Snape-they had gone directly to the bedside of Aria, so he took his leave of all of them, slinking back to the dungeons to think on the problems of the day and have a large glass of brandy.


	9. Chapter 9

FLASHBACK:

Severus sulked quietly in his empty room. Squealing and shouting from the lower floors could be heard by the excited Slytherins decorating for the holidays and preparing for the Yule Ball. Once again, the Yule Ball was only open to fourth years and higher, much to the irritation of the third years, the apathy of the second years and the relief of the first years. Severus concentrated on his book, trying to rid his mind of the noise below. A knock on his door was the only sound he would acknowledge.

"Come in," he called suspiciously.

Maya peeked through the door. "Can I come in? Are your flatmates here?"

"No, they're down doing whatever it is they do."

"Great." She opened the door and stepped in to reveal herself in a terry cloth bathrobe, her hair in an ornate updo. She wandered in, and plopped on the foot of the bed.

"Can I ask what in the name of Merlin are you wearing?" He eyed her, his nose scrunched up.

"I'm getting ready for the Yule Ball of course," she answered haughtily. Then she sighed, and continued in a whiney voice. "SEVVVVV ... what do I do!"

"About what?" he snorted. It was no surprise that Norvin or Netwick or whatever his name was had asked her to the Ball. Yes, she was a 3rd year, but as the on-again off-again sort-of girlfriend of a fourth year - especially a fourth year on the Quidditch team, she was obligated to go when asked.

"Nate is being such a git - this evening is going to be dreadful."

"Then don't go. I should think that choice should be obvious."

"But I've already told him I would. I'd much rather go to Hogsmeade with you." She sighed. Some of the unlucky staff had drawn short straws and been put in charge of the evening out with the younger classes at Hogsmeade as a sort of consolation prize for not being old enough to attend the Ball. While Jen was going to the ball, Heather had rolled her eyes at the concept, saying she would not go to a ball even if she were old enough, and that Hogsmeade suited her fine. She and other of Maya's friends, Eliza, Maria and Verona, had even planned a small party at one of the better establishments in Hogsmeade.

"I'm not going to Hogsmeade." he said sullenly. "I'll be here. Like I always am."

"What!" she cried. "You can't stay here all by yourself. That's so ... depressing."

"Well, I have no one to go to Hogsmeade with. Don't think I would leach myself onto the small remaining portion of the 'spectacular six' by myself. I rarely even enjoy their company when you are there as a personality buffer." Severus always referred to Maya's group of friends in offhanded, sarcastic nicknames. He tried very hard to find them insufferable, which most of the time was not a problem. Heather was pushy, Jen was too competitive, Eliza was a flighty at best, Eliza's twin sister Maria was tasteless and crass, and Verona had an unbearably squeaky voice. He often joined in their fun together, mostly to be with Maya. He felt that her friends only tolerated him because of her. Jen and Heather had a respect for him as a student, but the relationship didn't go much beyond that. Eliza often couldn't remember his name, and Maria just didn't like him at all. The only one who was friendly on a consistent basis was Verona, but Severus could only listen to her squeak through a conversation for so long before having to excuse himself.

Maya sighed. "Well, even if I was there, we wouldn't be with them. They all told me that I couldn't go unless I broke up with Nate." A grin threatened to spill over her face.

Severus gave a short chortle. "That was Jen's idea, wasn't it."

"Yes, well, she thought of it and then Heather offered to enforce it since Jen will be at the ball."

"So break up with him. Go have fun at Hogsmeade."

"Go with me."

"What?" He was startled.

"Go with me. I'll break up with him, and then we'll go to Hogsmeade together." She put her hand over his in an affectionate gesture. "We don't even have to go to the party. We have to make an appearance, of course, but then we'll go off and do something you like." She looked at him with pleading eyes.

"I don't know," he almost stuttered.

She dropped his hand and folded her arms. "Well, fine. I guess I'll just have to go to the Ball then. I guess it would be rude to cancel on Nate three hours before the event, even though he did tell me that he didn't really want to go anyways."

Severus shook his head in disgust. "If he doesn't want to go, why is he making you go?"

"For appearances, I guess. The other members of the Hufflepuff team have such UGLY girlfriends. I guess I'm a trophy of sorts." She snorted, looking at her nails in interest. "Well, I've wasted enough of your time. Happy reading." She curtly turned and walked toward the door.

"Maya, wait." He stood and tossed his book on the bed. "I will be here if you decide not to go to the Ball. If you would like me to," he paused uncomfortably, "escort you to Hogsmeade this evening, I will." She looked at her and noted her victorious smile. "However, Jen and Heather's stipulation stands. I do not wish to be the escort of someone else's trophy." He raised his eyebrows, and folded his arms across his chest. He saw her smile again, and almost FLOUNCE out of the room. He sighed, and went to his closet. He needed to mentally prepare for the evening with Maya's harpy friends. Somehow, it didn't bother him as much as it should.

Severus looked at the clock above his bed. Ten after Nine. He sighed: Maya was probably dancing the night away after yet another make-up with Nelson. Or Nat. Or Whatever his name was. He looked down at himself with disappointment. He had dragged out the new boots his mother had insisted on buying for him at the start of the term: shiny and dark - he wore black, of course, but he had wrapped a brilliant green scarf around his neck. He shook his head, thinking horrible thoughts about Maya and that idiot she insisted on keeping company with. He thought of her with her hair all done up: Meena's handiwork, he supposed. Ugh. She was too good for him. He was a dim-witted stick of a boy with tiny eyes and shoulders he still needed to grow into. He was the child of two muggles, and she was a pureblood. His parents were fishermen, or lighthouse keepers, or something equally inane. Her father was a powerful landowner and great novelist. Her mother came from a long line of powerful German wizards. He lived in Liverpool, of all places, and she was from London, with another estate on the Northwestern coast of the United States, and a family home on the Eastern seaboard.

What he hated most of all though, was that Maya always stood as close to him as possible, and he seemed to freeze instead of returning the affection. True, she was intimidating to the inexperienced male: tall, blonde, beautiful plump lips and dark blue eyes, with a flirty manner and sharp tongue, but even Severus had no trouble standing next to her without looking like he had been stupefied. He stood in disgust, and grabbed his cloak. He suddenly needed a bit of fresh air. He stormed out of the room, slamming the door and stomping out towards the grounds.

He made it as far as the garden before he realized this trip was a mistake: he saw the lights of the great hall, the candles and the decorations, and people swinging and bobbing on the dance floor. He pulled his cloak farther around him, though it had stopped snowing, and, head down, walked down the stairs toward the lake -

and straight into Maya. She looked angry and wild as she gathered her long dress into her gloved hands and stamping in her tiny shoes up the stairs to the hall.

"Severus!" she exclaimed in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"I should ask the same of you," he sneered viciously. "Shouldn't you be up waltzing with Nelvan?"

"Nate." she spat. "And no. It's over. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going."

"Wait," he grabbed her arm purposefully. He could tell through his gloves that her arm was freezing. "You're not going to be stupid enough to go gallivanting about the grounds by yourself at night without a wand, in that gown, are you? I know you aren't one to flaunt your family's wealth, but that dress must have cost you quite a few galleons. Pity to ruin it in the snow."

"Well then why don't you help me take it off?" she asked, danger in her tone.

"Don't tempt me," he countered dangerously, tightening his grip on her arm.

She sighed, the malice leaving her voice. "I'm sorry, Severus. I have no reason to be cross with you. But frankly, if you are going to be dark and brooding, I'm not going to join you. I've had enough of an emotional downfall this evening without that."

He looked at her, quirked his head, and let go of her arm. He pulled off his cloak and swished it around her shoulders, clasping the neckpiece tightly at her collarbone. She shivered under his fingertips.

"He wouldn't even dance with me, Sev," she said, snorting in irritated disbelief. "I mean really! I don't care what anyone says. I look amazing!"

"You can't expect someone of his, ahem, status, to know how to treat a beautiful girl at a formal affair." He pulled his gloves off finger by finger, and stuffed them in his pocket as he spoke.

"Etiquette is sadly very much overlooked in muggle primary schools." He bowed, and then held out his hand. She smile, almost thankfully, and took it in her own. As the music form the great hall drifted lightly out through the windows, Maya wrapped her hand in the lapel of Severus's robes, and leaned into him. He placed his gand gently on her hip, and they began a brisk waltz. Soon she was smiling, and he was smirking as he spun her and watched her beige and green gown billow out against the crisp air. The music slowed and she moved in closer. He readjusted his hand around her to the small of her back and inhaled her perfume. Vanilla today. Erotic and sensual. He could feel her breath against his ear, and he felt himself blush softly. As the music stopped, they pulled apart, and she smiled at him.

"Thank you Sev, you're a good friend." She took his arm. "Will you still accompany me to Hogsmeade? I'll be YOUR trophy for the night."

"I don't want a trophy," he lifted an eyebrow. "But I will escort my beautiful companion

to Hogsmeade." A small smile crossed his lips. "And you are right. You do look amazing."


	10. Chapter 10

Maya walked into Hogsmeade on Severus's arm. They chatted breezily as they walked towards the middle of town.

"Are we going to stop into the party?" he asked almost drearily.

She laughed heartily. "Not at all. Let's go somewhere and get a drink. You choose."

"Very well." He was relieved, and lead her into a small pub. He opened the door for her, and allowed her to step through. It was dark inside, but warm. A small fire was going in the corner, and the clientele was mostly older witches and wizards, with a few groups of students huddled together. He pulled out her chair, and took the cloak off her shoulders for her. She was pink and pleased with his formal behavior, and seemed to beam. Severus resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her, but decided to cut his losses, and sat down himself. He ordered hot drinks, and noticed with satisfaction that her expression had returned to neutral.

The door opened behind him, and he paid no attention until he noticed her face fall, and her eyes cast down. He turned his head to see who had walked in, and saw with much distaste that James Potter, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew had just come in, shaking snow off their cloaks.

"What a wonderful way to finish off an otherwise lovely evening," he spat, turning back to Maya.

"Just ignore them. Maybe they'll leave us alone." She looked into her cup.

"Maya! How are you!" James Potter said from across the room. Maya grimaced, and looked up. James walked over, followed by his two friends.

"James. Sirius. Peter. Enjoying your holiday?" She nodded at him, plastering a fake smile on her face.

"Eh, not bad." James pulled over a chair and sat between her and Severus. Sirius stood behind him, and Peter was lurking just behind him. "You seem to be. All dressed up with no place to go?" He smiled.

"I'm here, aren't I? What about you? Where's your friend Remus?"

"He's otherwise indisposed, at the moment," answered Sirius darkly, folding his arms over his chest, eyeing Severus.

"So, Maya." James scooted his chair over so Sirius could perch backwards on a chair next to him. "When are you going to try out for the Quidditch team? I saw you playing with you sisters ... what are their names?"

"Meena and Athena." she answered, trying to remain uninterested for Severus's sake.

"Right, of course. They're good." he replied. "But you, you are amazing! Hurry up and try out so you can compete with us!" He smiled.

"I'm a keeper. When Athena graduates this year, then I'll try out."

"Alright. Fair enough. I look forward to it." He grinned. "Going to get a butterbeer, don't move." He jumped up, and bounded to the bar.

"Well, Severus," Sirius said with obvious malice. "I see you have yourself a very pretty date tonight." He turned to her. "What happened to Nate? I know he's a Hufflepuff scouse, but really. You would trade him for Snivellus over here?"

"Hey. Really, Sirius, is that necessary? Rule is, if you are going to sit here, you have to behave like a civilized human being. To BOTH of us."

"Very sorry, Maya. You know I'm only joking with 'ol Snape over here." He smiled at her, and then sneered at Severus.

"Well, it's not very funny," she looked down at her drink. Thankfully, James returned just then and plopped down with three butterbeers for the trio.

"Cheers, mates!" He clinked glasses with his friends, with a weakly enthusiastic Maya, and then ignored Severus, who was refusing to look at him. The three of them downed their butterbeers quite quickly. James looked up first.

"Well then. We'll leave you two to your own devices. Maybe I'll see you on the pitch, eh?" he tipped his hat to Mya, and then punched Severus playfully in the arm. "You could learn something from this one. Your flying is atrocious, mate." He laughed congenially, and began to put his coat back on. Sirius leaned down to Maya.

"You really could do much better," he said softly.

"How subtle of you, BLACK. You must have forgotten that I am sitting right behind you." Severus said coldly and with venom. Black turned around slowly to look him in the eye. They sized each other up for a long couple of seconds before James took Sirius by the arm.

"Come on then, Sirius. Let him be. It's the holidays after all."

Sirius backed away, never taking his eyes off Severus. "You're right, James, it is the holidays. Which reminds me," Sirius pulled out hi wand and pointed it at the small floral display on the table. He said an incantation, and they all watched it transform into a completely new plant in a small puff of smoke.

"What on earth is that?" asked Peter, thoroughly confused. They other three watched closely as Sirius picked it up, and moved over near Maya.

"Mistletoe," he answered, never taking his eyes of Severus. In a quick motion he leaned down and kissed Maya softly on the lips. She was shocked, Severus was appalled, Peter put a hand over his mouth as he whooped in laughter, and James cracked a grin.

"Oi, now Sirius, that's enough of that." James pulled him away. Maya looked straight into Sirius's eyes, and saw something she didn't expect. She couldn't put a finger on it, but it definitely wasn't malice, like she had expected. It looked more like...longing? She let it go, remembering her anger. Sirius too tipped a hat to Maya, and made an exaggerated bow to Severus. They wandered off, the faint praise from James about what a brilliant spell that was, and could he learn it and try it with Lily Evans being heard.

Maya just looked at Severus. She didn't even know what emotion to register on her face, there were so many going through her blood. When she saw Severus, his fists clenched on the table, looking altogether deflated, she chose anger.

"The nerve of him!" she exclaimed. "That was completely uncalled for." She pouted. "I'm GLAD Remus is indisposed. Maybe he'll give whatever he's got to them." She waited for Severus to agree, and when no response came, she looked at him, slightly worried that he might just be mad enough to explode. Or make something explode.

Severus could not remember having been any angrier than he was right now. Making fun of his flying was one thing. That he could brush off as schoolboy antics. Insulting him was a little harder to ignore, but he was used to it from Sirius, so he could get over that in a matter of moments. But kissing Maya? That was adding a rather large amount of insult to injury. And Maya just sat there like she enjoyed it. Damn her. He knew Sirius was interested in her. The way he leered at her in class, the way he always made a point to comment on her clothing, her hair. It would just figure that Maya would return the favor. Two beautiful people, going off into the sunset together ...

"SEV." Maya practically had to yell to get his attention. "Where were you just now?"

Severus glowered back at her. "None of your business, thank you."

Maya leaned back abruptly. "Excuse me? What did I do to deserve that? Be angry, fine, but not at me." She slammed her glass down on the table, making him feel a pang of guilt. Then she looked back at him and glowered right back. "No. No, I should be mad at you. I defended you when they started to be obnoxious. And what did you do? You just sat there like you were petrified, and LET Sirius Black KISS me." She shook her head.

"Let him? You didn't seem to be fighting it off." he countered.

"Severus Snape. Do you realize that now, for the rest of my life, my FIRST kiss will be from a boy in our third year who I really didn't like, who decided to kiss my under some magicked up mistletoe just to piss you off? I'm the one who's been VIOLATED here."

Severus sat stiffly, looking uncomfortable. She was right. He hated it when she was right.

"I hate those bastards." he managed finally.

"Yes, well, you're not the only one. I mean, Remus is the only one of the bunch that I actually enjoy. And he's the one who is never around. Always 'indisposed', whatever that alludes to. Peter is a worthless waste of humanity, James is bearable, but utterly arrogant and egotistical, and Sirius is just a bad person."

"I hate all of them." His statements were simple, but his voice was deadly. "I wish there was something I could do, something that would make them see ..." he trailed off.

"Don't worry Sev. They aren't even worth our time." She took his hand between her own, lacing her fingers through his. He glanced down at her, immediately feeling a little better. "Come on then. Let's go." She stood, and pulled him to his feet. They walked in silence the whole way home, Severus still stewing angrily, and Maya pouting.

When they returned to the Slytherin common room, they were still the first to have returned.

"Sorry the evening was a bust. If it makes you feel better, it was fun until the bastard brigade broke up the party." She shrugged, and handed back his cloak. She started to turn away toward her room, but he stopped her.

"Maya, It is very regrettable indeed that Sirius ruined the experience for you. Not just the evening, you know what I mean." She nodded.

"Oh, Sev, It's not that big of a deal. I mean, It doesn't really count as anything, does it. I didn't kiss him back or anything. I'm really more upset that they ruined a perfectly lovely evening." She smiled wryly.

Severus breathed deeply, looking at her in the pale candlelight of the common room, the green trim of the dress clinging to her figure delicately. Something shimmered around her neck, and he looked closer. It was a rather large pink rock, and he wondered why he hadn't noticed it before. It must have been covered by the cloak, but it really was quite stunning.

She noticed him staring, and looked down. "Are you looking at this?" she asked, picking it up from her chest. It was set in a thick pewter basket. He nodded.

"That's quite the ornament."

"A gift from my grandmother. It's rhodonite. It's supposed to activate love, or attract a lover, or something along those lines." She laughed. "Well, I guess I can blame the Sirius ... EVENT ... on the jewelry."

Severus had stepped closer, and was touching the necklace himself. "I don't want your first kiss to be from the likes of Sirius Black," he said suddenly looking up at her. She cocked her head, waiting for an explanation. In came in a very physical form as Severus clumsily placed his hand on her face and leaned down to her. He kissed her very lightly on the lips, and then, breathing in for courage, kissed her again more decisively. He felt her lean into his lips and sigh contentedly. When he ended the kiss and dropped his hands, he looked at her self-consciously. Her eyes were still closed, and she was smiling. She opened her eyes then, and looked at Severus.

"Thank you," she said to him. "That was much better than Sirius Black." He returned her smile, if not a little more shyly. "Now I'll be able to say that my first kiss was from a very good friend of mine, after a lovely evening at the pub. A much better memory, wouldn't you say?"

"Much," he agreed. She smiled again.

"Goodnight, Sev. I'll see you in the morning, I'm sure. Thanks again." She turned and seemed to float up the stairs. He watched her slowly disappear, and let out the breath he was holding. A much better memory indeed.


	11. Chapter 11

It's been a long time since I've updated ... I don't know that anyone is even reading this, becasue I have no reviews. Come on guys. Show me some love ... some hate? I dunno. Something ...

PRESENT:

Snape walked into the hospital wing the next morning, feeling stiff after falling asleep in his chair. He realized that it had been quite a while since he had had a good night's sleep. He saw Dumbledore sitting next to Aria: they were talking in low voices and eating cinnamin buns. Snape approached, and sat in the empty chair nearest the bed.

"Good morning, Severus." Dumbledore said cheerily.

"Headmaster," he acknowleged. "Miss Howe. Glad to see you're feeling a little more... conscious."

"Yes, Severus, I am. Thank you. Thank you so much for bringing me back . I-" she shuddered. "What a bad experience that was. You were right - I shouldn't have gone."

"Now, Miss Howe," Dumbledore interjected. "Severus and I would like to hear everything that happened: I don't want to upset you, but it is very strange indeed that you were not killed by Voldemort or the Death Eaters. Something is amiss, and I'm hoping we can solve this little puzzle."

Aria sighed dejectedly. "I've made such a mess of everything..." She shook it off, and beagan her tale. "Okay. As you know, I went to McMarken's to see if I could find someone to take me to Voldemort. Quite the, uh, shady place." She shuddered. "Anyway, everyone in there looked like a goon or ex-con or, you know. So I went in, I ordered my drink, I waited for a while, until finally this man came up to me, and grabbed me by the arm, and took me with him to the back of the bar."

"Can you describe him?" asked Dumbledore.

"Eh ... short-ish. Stocky. Dark hair. Bad teeth. Very generic looking. He sounded like he was from somewhere in Scotland." She shrugged, sorry she couldn't remember more. "Anyway, I stepped through the door in the back of the bar, thinking it was like, a back door, or maybe a private office, but it was this insta-apperator. It sent me all the way to the cemetary of someone's esate."

"The Riddle estate." Snape said.

"Riddle?" Aria asked.

"Lord Voldomort."

"Ahh. Okay, so I was at the Riddle Estate. The same guy was with me; I guess he had apperated with me from the bar. There was another man, a taller, greasier man. Cockney motherfucker." she snorted in distatste. "I told him who I was. Full title. Everything I could think to throw at him, and he didn't seem to care all that much. In fact, as I remember, he called me a stupid cow." She muttered something about the 'frickin' english and their bizarre insults' under her breath, and then continued. "They took my wand, and we went up the hill towards the manor. Voldemort was sitting there in his little throne room with his personal assistant next to him."

"Pettigrew," Snape growled.

"Pettigrew?" Aria asked, astounded. "I recognize that name."

"Peter Pettigrew. He was in his first year during your seventh." Snape answered.

"Hm. Lovely. So I tried to tell him who I was and why I was here, and he hit me with a curse."

"Cruciatus?" Snape asked.

"No," she closed her eyes and screwed up her face, trying to remember. "Sectu-something. Sectasempra. That's right. Because afterwards, he came over to me and said something like, 'what's wrong with you, usually sectasempra rips people apart, blah blah blah.'"

"You mean, it didn't work?" Snape looked at her in interest.

"I don't know what it was supposed to have done. But I think it worked. It hurt like a bitch!"

"But you had no wounds." Snape stated.

"Severus, perhaps if you explain to Miss Howe the nature of the curse," Dumbledor prodded patiently.

He sighed. "Sectusempra should slice you open. A very bloody, painful curse, but quite the ingenious one, if I do say so." He looked almost proud for a moment, which confused Aria to no end.

"Well, then, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it was some other curse. Becasue I didn't get 'sliced open' at all. It just knocked me down."

Dumbledore and Snape shared a look.

"Then, Pettigrew came up and told Voldemort that I was friends with you," she nodded at Snape, "which really scared me, because I knew that I had screwed up, but I didn't want to get you killed too." She breathed in, deep, cleansing breaths. "I told them that I knew you, but that we never saw each other. I told them that I came on my own, no one had sent me. He kept cursing me, the same curse as before, whatever that was ... I was literally in so much pain, I couldn't ever function. Finally it stopped, and he was kinda ... looming above me. He looked really pissed off, and he was asking me why I didn't bleed ... I guess maybe it was secasempra. He must have been doing it wrong."

"Voldemort does not perform curses 'wrong'." Snape stated. Aria ignored him.

"So then he went klepto on my necklace, and told Pettigrew I had something that he wanted, and had his militia drag me off, and I guess they knocked me out becasue the next thing I remember is waking up here."

"I'm sorry, Miss Howe ... help me understand. Did you say he stole you necklace?" Dumbledore looked at her hard.

"Yeah. Why, I don't know. It wasn't an expensive necklace. I mean, I work for the government. I don't make an amazing salery."

"May I ask what it was?"

"It was a small silver trinket. With a red stone. Maya knows all about it ... I can't remember the actual stone type. If you want to know, I would call her."

"I just may do that. Thank you, Miss Howe. Please, do get some rest."

"Thank you. I will. I think Athena and Mena are coming up - they actually wanted to see you, Severus, if you could stay for a moment."

"I'm very busy," he began.

"Severus, I think a break would do you good. Stay and chat with the ladies." He turned and walked from the room, leaving Snape to glower thoughts about how he didn't "chat" with anyone. He sat, and loolked at Aria.

"Can you please call me Aria?" she asked. "It wasn't THAT long ago that we were friends."

"Twent-five years is a long time."

"Still. This is getting ridiculous. I feel like a stranger."

"Miss Howe, you practically are."

"Well, fine. Have it your way." She looked slightly annoyed, but not too much, and he was relieved to not have to deal with an emotional woman in the hospital wing. They sat in silence for a few moments until he heard two sets of footsteps come into the room. Athena and Meena walked in together, followed by a house elf with a tray of coffee, muffins and fresh fruit.

"Severus! Darling! How have you been!" Meena came over, always the haughty englishwoman, and sat gingerly down next to him.

"I've been quite well, Miss Howe." he answered demurly, trying to avoid eye-contact.

"Oh, please. None of this Miss Howe nonsense. I've been a married woman for close to twelve years now. If you must be formal, which I suspect that you must, please. Mrs. McWharton." She placed her hand on his wrist.

"Mrs. McWharton. Excellent." He pursed his lips together.

"Severus, we wanted to thank you for taking such good care of Aria. Without you, I just don't know what would have happened." Athena put her hands on her hips. "You're a wonderful man."

"Yes, Severus. Really." Meena purred, and nodded slightly.

Severus stood, bowed and looked at the three woman from his childhood, one plump and motherly, one independent, bold and American, and one coldly beautiful. "Madames, it has been a pleasure. I regret that I must take my leave."

He began to walk out the door, and paused when he heard clicking footsteps following him. Mena had come in tow, and stopped him right outside the door to the hospital wing.

"Severus." she said in a low voice. "I don't know what's going on, but I do hope my idiotic sister hasn't put you in any danger. She tends to do her job like a bull in a china shop, which, it seems, is how the rest of the United States officials runs their government." She grabbed both his hands and held them in hers. Snape kept his eyes locked on hers, ignoring the surprised looks he was getting from the passing students to see their potions teacher holding hands with a rather gorgeous blonde witch in the hallway.

"I will admit, subtlety seems a bit lost on her," he scoffed.

"I've thought about you quite a bit since Maya graduated. You seemed to just fade away. I wondered when we would see you again. I always assumed you would march back into our lives in a blaze of glory, saving her from one of her more stupid jugement errors." She smiled icily, reminding him, he thought uneasily, of Narcissa Malfoy. "I had it right, I suppose, just the wrong sister." She reached up, and kissed him lightly on the cheek, just a little too close to his own mouth for comfort. He kept his eyes steeley, and his breath steady. He felt his blood race in anger at the shocked gasps of the students around him. Mena looked at him again, and then turned and returned to her sister's bedside. Snape immediately turned, looked directly at whatever student happened to be in his way, and muttered,

"Voyerism doen't suit you, Mr. Longbottom. Detention." And then huffily stormed through the castle leaving poor Neville standing awkwardly in the halls holding a tray of mandrake roots meant to be delivered to Madame Pompfry.

Snape continued his raging stomping down through to his quarters in the dungeons. He had a little over an hour until his first class, which, he noted with disdain, was his fifth year griffendor/slytherin combo. Of all the brats to be faced with, Potter and company, along with Malfoy, were on the very bottom of his list. And now, he feared that the whole school was buzzing about his encounter in the hall with Meena. Devious little minx, he thought with a growl. She had no intention of following through on any of her romantic interludes - sheknew her power lie in her beauty, and chose to exploit it at every possible chance. I'm sure her husband enjoys that, he thought with a vengeful choke. He spent the remainder of the hour angrily throwing potions ingrediants into a basket for his students.

When the studentsall filed in, he stood menacingly at the front of the classroom. He scanned the room: there was Malfoy, looking quite confident. And there was Potter, looking at him with unmasked hatred. And the Weasley boy next to him who had a look of unbridled disdain - he had a sudden entertaining thought: he looked to a row of children who, as he had suspected, glanced back and forth between Potter, Malfoy and himself. Those poor children who were not privy to the information the Draco knew from his father, or that Potter and company knew from the Order must have been in a constant state of terrible confusion as to why he, Snape, was in a chronic distemper, and why Malfoy, Potter, Weasley and Granger seemed to understand him all too well.

"Today we will be brewing a potion of my own invention: this potion, obviously, is not in the book." He turned and began writing ingrediants on the board. He knew this potion was much too complicated for most of his class, but he wanted to wipe the knowing smirks off of all of their faces. The rumor mill is in fine form this morning, he thought angrily.

"It must be a loooove potion," whispered a rather bold - or stupid - teenager from the back of the hall. A few choked snickers followed, but immediately died down and Snape rose himself up to his full form, swirled in his massive robes, and shot a silent stream from hius wand at the offending student. The class turned to see that the boy had fallen face forward onto the ground, his houth poastered against the cobblestones. He was trying to pull hisface up from the floor, but it was as if his lips were full of dense metal, and far too heavy to lift.

"That will teach Mr. Soahl to have such a big mouth," Snape said through curled lips. "Let it be understood that I do not tolerate gossip of any sort in this class. I cannot even begin to describe the punishment that will come ot the next person who speaks. At all. I will answer no questions. I will take no comments. This will be a silent period."

He turned, finished writing his ingrediants on the board, and noticed with some satisfaction that the class brewed silently as the grave for the next hour and a half.

The class had all failed their potion making quite dismally, as he had expected, except, of course, Hermione Grange, who had managed a very weak pass. Which he had also expected. He had spent most of the class pretending to grade papers, thinking back ...

Flashback:

It was the first day of the new term. Severus had sat alone on the train and slept, covered in his cloak. He had traveledto the castle in a funk, and unloaded his things in silence. His foul mood was a surprise, even for him: he was usually greatly excited by the first days of the term. However, he had received several letters from Maya that summer via owl - she was once again staying in California with her sister who was getting ready for her third year at the American University. Severus remembered the last time she had come back form a month in California: tan, blonde, fabulous ... he darkly thought of Sirius Black's attraction to her, and sighed audibly. He heard a knock on the door, and, expecting it to be Maya, skulked over to open it, prepared for the worst - or best, depending on how he looked at it. However, instead, he found Meena standing in his doorway.

"Meena," he nodded. "I see the summer sun did not accost you as much as I'm sure it has your sister."

Meena smiled through red lips on fair skin. "I was in Ireland all summer with Athena. She's in school to become a healer, you know. The summer there is quite different from that of California. I find is preferable." Of the four sisters, Mena had always had the best pure English, and Severus admired that. Her voice was silky, like thick milk. She was entering her sixth year - she was sixteen, and while still had a girlish look about her, managed to uphold an air of dominance all the same.

"Please, come in," Severus motioned to her.

"No, I can't stay. I just thought I would come up to be the first to welcome you back to Hogwarts." She smiled at him, and he felt the urge to smile back, but refrained. She was acting very strange.

"Thank you."

"Hmm, Maya told me that you had gotten better-looking this summer, I looked at the pictures, but Sev, they just don't do you justice." She took a step towards him. He fought the urge to take a step back. She was shorter than he was by a few inches, but wore shoes that evened the playing field.

"I'll try and be flattered," he said suspiciously.

"I came up to warn you - Maya has picked up some of the most awful habits from the United States. You should see what she has taken to wearing." Meena shook her head. "I just hope she won't embarrass us this term, don't you agree?"

"I have found that Maya makes up for her errors in jugement..." Severus began.

"Yes, well, I should hope." She waved him off with her hand. "She should be up soon. I'll let you continue with what you are doing." She stepped up to him and gently pulled him into a sensual embrace. "Glad to see you again, Sev," she whispered into his ear, pressing herself against him tightly. He gingerly returned the hug, not quite knowing what she was playing at. Suddenly, it all came to him in one spoken phrase from the hall.

"Meena? Get off of Severus." Severus yanked his hands off of Meena as Maya's voice ripped through the air. Meena slowly detangled herself from him, and to his horror, placed a peck on his cheek.

"Until later, Sev." She turned, gave Maya a meaningful look, and flounced off.

Maya approached Severus with a look of ... something ... jealousy? In her eye.

"Getting comfortable with my sister quite early in the term, aren't we?"

"She is a very forceful woman."

"Woman? She's sixteen. Don't call her a woman when she's just a goose of a girl."

"Now, now, Maya, jealousy isn't a flattering shade on you." He sneered.

"Severus, shove it. I came up to see you, I even made Appian stay downstairs. You can understand why I might be slightly perturbed to find that you've already attached yourself to my most evil sibling."

"Your most evil sibling?"

"Meena is dangerous. Don't underestimate her. She is full of hidden, wretched motives." Maya looked at Severus cryptically. He returned the hard gaze, and then, deciding not to push the envelope any more, changed the subject.

"I see the summer has done you well," he admired. She was indeed, as he had expected, taller, blonder, tanner, skinnier, her hair longer than it had ever been before.

"Don't flatter me, Severus. I saw you watching Meena. I've seen enough guys looking at me that way to know what it means."

"Maya, really, this is getting ridiculous."

"Is it? I come up here to kiss you hello, and I find you practically snogging my sister! That's a bit much for me to handle. Don't I feel foolish." She looked down. "Anyway, welcome back and all that. I'll see you in class tomorrow, I'm sure." She turned and walked away, giving Severus very little time to practically salivate over her newest style of dress. But, Meena was wrong, it was not embarrassing, it was ... enticing. Plaid pleated mini-skirt. Brown. Sleeveless top. Blue. Long blonde braids. Delicate sandals. Severus cursed himself. That was going to be very hard to ignore. He thought about what she said, and realized that yes, Meena probably was dangerous. He shut the door slowly, thinking very hard about this new information.

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	12. Chapter 12

PRESENT:

12 Grimmauld place was awash with activity. Snape sat quietly by the fireplace, keeping his ears open, and his eyes focused on the flames. Ron, Hermione, Harry and the rest of the numerous Weasleys were all stomping about. Molly was making tea and banging pots about in the kitchen, Lupin was talking animatedly with Arthur, and Sirius was running through the house havinglong screaming fights with the portraits on the walls, andKreacher, the house-elf. Aria, healthy enough to get out of bed, was wandering around the house, talking loudly on a device she referred to as her 'cell'. Athena was playing exploding snap with Fred and George, who had taken an instant liking to her. Snape himself was trying very hard to avoid Meena, who seemed to be making herself more and more comfortable with him as time went on. Thankfully her husband had been forced to go on a business trip, so her daughter, Leah, was now a resident of Grimmauld as well. While Snape definitely didn't like children, especially those as young at Leah, he was thankful that the girl took most of the attention away fom him. At the moment, She was helping Leah with one of her math lessons.

He concentrated hard to see if he could hear what the gossip about his was now. With three sisters in the house, information about his childhood was no doubt in circulaiton among the Weasleys and friends. He listened:

"God DAMN you Kreacher! If you don't get that blasted thing out of here immediately I swear to you, ..." No, no that was not it.

"Poor Neville. You know he was only trying to help Madame Pompfrey. I can't believe he got a detention! You know he got a howler from his grandmother..." Ugh. Granger. Noooo.

"Arthur! Tell Bill that I simply cannot keep up with is dietary habits. If he can't eat red meat like the rest of us then he can make himself his own food! Really, this is beginnign to grate on me ..." Snape closed his eyes tightly. There were times when he wanted to tape Molly Weasley's mouth shut.

Finally he heard what he was listening for:

"Of course Albus, he's right in here. Had a bit of an emotional week, I've heard. We're all a bit worried about him." Remus Lupin. Worried. Snape rolled his eyes in fury. He hated having the pity of a WEREWOLF.

The door opened, and he stood to face Lupin and Dumbledore. Sirius Black was with them as well, still scowling over the fight with Kreacher.

"Severus, excellent. Please sit down."

Snape sat, waiting.

"I have a favor to ask of you. I believe the key to our current mystery lies with your old friend, Maya Howe. I have been trying very hard to reach her, as have her sisters, but it seems she has ..." he looked at Black for help.

"Turned off her phone, apparently," said Black, clearly as confused as Dumbledore.

"Indeed," said Snape. "What, precisely, do you want me to do about that? Shall I send her an owl telling her to please turn it back on, we would very much like to catch up with her?"

"Severus, really. I had hoped that perhaps you would be willing to go and convince her to pay us a visit."

"Headmaster, I doubt Miss Howe could be convinced to do anything I asked of her." He set his face adamantly. He would not. He could not.

"Very well, Severus, very well." He turned to Sirius. "Can I assume, then, that you and Remus are still willing to fetch our missing piece?" he asked congenially with a twinkle in his eye.

"Quite certainly." Black said, giving a meaningful look at Snape.

"Your sending Black? Isn't he wanted for murder?" Snape growled pointedly.

"Someone hasto go, Severus." he snarled. "Since you don't think you're the best man for the job, I volunteered."

"Well then," Snape said icily. "A good journey." He abruptly stood up, and walked briskly out of the room. He could overhear the tail-end of the conversation as he walked up the stairs.

"Well, I think that went well," said Lupin optimistically.

"Oh shut up, Remus. Get your bags ready. We're leaving immediately."

It was the gently chuckle of Albus Dumbledore, however, that made him fume the most.

Remus and Sirius stood outside of a small opera house in San Francisco, California. They looked mildly out of place.

"Maya Howe works at an opera house?" Sirius hissed. He looked up and saw the marquis sign: "Sounds of the Fight - Maya Wraid - Rock Opera"

"It appears as if her name is Maya Wraid, now. Married, I suppose." Lupin gave a wry smile. He had always like Maya. Found her to be a thouroughly enjoyable person. He also found it quite funny that she prefered Severus Snape to Sirius Black - mostly because it infuriated his friend to absolutely no end. It seemed that he maintined his interest in the youngest Howe sister simply so he could be frustrated with Severus.

"Married. Typical. No one that attractive could stay single." Lupin waited for it, knowing the barb at Snape's expence was not far behind. "At least she did better than the likes of Severus Snape."

Lupin laughed quietly and stepped up to the ticket office.

Three hours later, Remus and Sirius stood with the last lingering traces of the audience in the small theater space. They were mostly friends and family, waiting for the performers to make an appearance.

"Well, what did you think?" asked Sirius gruffly.

"A little loud for my taste, but she seems quite talented." he answered.

"It's been a while since I've been to the theater. I didn't expect my grand comeback to be a rock opera written and directed by Maya Howe," he shook his head.

"Wraid," Lupin reminded him.

"Whatever," Sirius scoffed.

Finally the cast appeared, all running to their family and friends in excitement. The two wizards waited in the corner until they saw a woman who was unmistakeably Maya enter the theater space, talking animatedly with a handsome young man. Lupin felt himself grin. He never would have guessed that she used to be a proper english witch, if only on very few occasions. Now wearing a blue suit and spikey velvet green pumps, she certainly passed as muggle woman. No robes, only a matching green velvet jacket swung lazily over her shoulder. She sauntered in with her young companion, smiling wide.

"Excuse me," Remus approached her from his seat.

She turned and looked at him, absolutely no recognition in her eyes. "Yes?"

"Maya, I don't know if you remember me ... my name is Remus Lupin." he began tentatively. She looked at him for a moment as if registering the name. Her arm dropped, and her free hand cameover her mouth in obvious shock.

"Remus?" Her accent was still in tact, thank goodness, although smoothed out a bit by American dialect. He was unprepared for her next move. She lunged at him, pulling him into a tight embrace. "I can't believe it! What are you doing here!" She stepped back and looked at him with gleeful shock.

"I was in the country, I suppose," he smiled. "Do you remember Sirius Black?" Lupin motioned to Black. Maya looked at him and covered her face with her hands. She laughed with joy, and grabbed Black into a similar embrace.

"I can hardly stand it! This is like a twilight zone episode. Oh my God!" She looked at her companion. "Isaack, these men went to school with me in England!"

"Ahh! Fabulous to meet you!" He put out a hand, and shook each of theirs heartily.

"This is Isaak Devlin, my stage manager. He's amazing."

"So this isn't your husband, then?" Sirius asked pointedly. This made both Isaack and Maya burst into peals of laughter.

"Heavens no!" She sang out.

"Not in a million years, honey, no offense." He winked at Lupin. "MY man is over there," he pointed up to a young guy standing on stage talking to one of the performers.

"Oh, of course. My mistake." Black looked uncomfortable.

"Well sweetie, I'm taking off. SO wonderful to meet you all. Come back again! We'll all go to the Steps of Rome and have hot men serve us lattes." He kissed Maya on the cheek and wandered towards his boyfriend.

Maya turned back to them. "What are you doing here? Did you apparate? Did you floo?" They shook their heads. "Good. Then let's go. I'll take you both out for a drink. I still can't believe you're actually here!" The three of them walked outside, and down the street. They reached a small, cozy bar and stepped inside. They sat, and ordered drinks.

"So. First of all, what did you think of the show?" She folded her hands together and looked at them expectantly.

"Interesting," Sirius said after throwing back a shot of whiskey. "Did you write it? The music as well?"

She nodded. "A friend of mine and I made an album a few years back - we called the collection 'Sounds of the Fight'. She's an amazing vocalist - I just played the music. Anyway, I had written a play at the same time that we had made the album, and we superimposed them, tweaking things here and there, you know. Anyway, it finally came to fruition this year! What an amazing experience." She took a swig of her beer.

"It was quite amazing, Maya. You seem to have made quite the life for yourself." Lupin grinned at her. She grinned back.

"So. Tell me. What has been going on with all of you? How's James, and Peter, and Lily, and I don't know ... everyone? I get very little information from my sisters. Aria lives here, you know. And Athena lives in Ireland, so she doesn't ever see anyone, and Meena, well, Meena and I don't really get along all that well." She sipped again. She looked up, and noticed the two men exchange a look and Lupin swallowed nervously.

"Did something happen?" she asked, suddenly getting a pit in her stomach.

"Maya," Lupin began. "I don't know how to tell you this. Do you remember a wizard named Voldomort?"

She shrugged. "I remember somequack who thought he was the second coming of Satan. Why?"

"Well, after you came here, he gained power. Quite a bit of power actually, and there was a bit of a war, I guess you could say." Lupin looked into his glass as he spoke.

"Yes, yes, I remember it was quite the problem. I was actually worried about Meena. And I never worry about Meena. But as I rememebr, he was defeated, right?"

"Not without severe casualties," Lupin said softly.

Maya looked at him questioningly. Sirius had magicked his glass full and downed another shot. "He killed James and Lily. Peter became his miserable little whelp servant, and framed me. I spent thirteen years in Azkaban for what he did! All the while everyone thinking I had killed them ... my best friends!" He slammed down his glass. "And now we need you to come back." He looked into her wide eyes.

She breathed deeply. "Why? Why me? I haven't been to England in years."

"Your sister had a bit of a run in with Voldomort recently," Lupin began.

"I thought he was dead!"

"He's back," growled Sirius.

"Who?"

"Aria," Lupin continued. "She tried to reason with him. He hurt her pretty badly. She's fine, she's fine, no worries, but we need your expertise."

"That bitch! She told me she was going to england on a diplomatic errand!" Maya was almost in tears.

"Maya. Listen to me. Aria is fine. Both Athena and Meena are at our headquarters in London. But Voldomort stole something of Aria's. A necklace. We need you to tell us about that."

Maya's eyes snapped up, instantly full of fear. "What necklace?"

Sirius piped in. "Some silver piece with a red stone."

"Not the bloodstone?" She put her head in her hands. "Bloody bollucks, Aria." She looked up, and sighed. "If he has the bloodstone, we're in a whole lot more trouble than you realize. We have to get it back."

"Come with us." Lupin held her hand. "Help us. We need you."

"Shit," she muttered uncerimoniously. "I guess I have no choice. Come on. Let's go. We'll stop at my place, get my stuff together, and then go." She stood, looking as though the weight of the world had been dumped on her shoulders. "You can fill me in there. I need to know everything."

They nodded and silently stood to follow her into the night: three bodies on a mission of certain importance against the backdrop of the cheerful glittering lights of the California Bay.

Maya stood at he door to Grimmauld Place. Appian stood next to her, her luggage had already beentransported.

"It's been so long," she muttered.

"Just wait until everyone sees you," Black said with amusement.

"Yes, it will be niceto see my sisters. Havn't seen some of them since last Christmas." She sighed heavily. "And who else? Dumbledore, obviously, and McGonigal. I remember them." She chuckled. "Is there anyone else I'm forgetting?"

"I guess we'll find out," said Sirius, opening the door wide. She stepped inside, and into what appeared to be a zoo. As they walked through the hallways, portraits shrieked, and people and children seems to be rushing about everywhere. She fought to follow Sirius who was screaming back at the portraits as they passed.

"Who is THAT?" an unpleasant portrait shrieked. "Why is she in my HOME?"

"Mother, shut up! That's Maya Howe."

"Howe? Girl, is your father Satinum Howe?"

"Yes, he is," she answered uncertainly.

"Hmph," the woman continued. "Never liked his work. Good family though. Best choice he ever made was marrying that mother of yours. Very well. But keep it down!"

"Please ignore mother," Sirius growled. "Come on, we'll introduce you to everyone." She followed him into the main drawing room.

Sirius began to shout at all the commotion, and Maya took the opportunity to make a quick survey of the room. She saw Dumbledore, and McGonigal, looking a little older than she remembered, but still very poise and proper. At the moment she was trying to calm several red-headed children who seemed to multiply every time a door was opened. A large orange cat ran through the room, and Maya had to grab Appian by the collar to keep him from chasing after it. There was a young woman with pink hair sitting next to a rather sullen, dark man who seemed to be shooting mental daggers at one of the redheads and his brunette friend. There were several other older witches and wizards, and her Athena at the end of the table. Aria sat next to her, a crutch at her side. Finally, standing in the corner, Maya saw Meena, standing with her arms crossed over her chest, Leah by her side.

When the room finally became somewhat ordered, Sirius beagan

"Everyone, this is Maya Howe."

"Oh for God's sake, Sirius. Wraid!" hissed Lupin.

"No, no, It's still Howe," came Meena's voice from the corner.

"Thanks Meena," she returned with a sneer.

"Well, whatever it is, Maya, you know Albus and Minerva, of course." Maya nodded her hellos to both. "Here we have Nymphadora Tonks, Molly and Aurthur Weasly and their family," he motioned to all the red-heads in the room, ranging form young teen to mid-twentys. "Over there is Harry, and Hermione, your sisters of course." He sat down lazily. "Everyone, Maya Howe. Or Wraid. Or Whoever you are."

Maya stood, looking over the room, quite overwhelmed. She smiled uncomfortably, and thankfully, Dumbledore took over the speaking for her.

"Yes, yes, Miss Howe, thank you so much for coming. Now, as it is rather late in the evening, I'm sure you wish to get some sleep." He motioned to Hermione. "Miss Granger, if you would please show Miss Howe to her room - Miss Howe, you and I will have to catch up in the morning. Until then, off to bed!" He stood slowly, as did the rest of the room, who then busied themselves with various things. She noticed the tall dark wizard slipped out the kitchen doorway.

"Miss Howe? I'm Hermione Granger. I'll show you where you can stay."

"Thank you Hermione. Please, call me Maya." She followed Hermione up the stairs to a small room that she would stay in for the next few days. Appian happily jumped directly onto the bed and curled himself into a tiny ball of fluff.

"Goodnight, Maya. See you in the morning!" Hermione hopped off to her own bed leaving Maya by herself. What a whirlwind. She hadn't even gotten to see her sisters - well, it was close to midnight, English time, and she hadn't gotten to sleep at all the night before. They hadn't apparated from San Francisco until close to noon the next day. She lay on the bed and fell immediatley into slumber.

Snape had returned to Hogwarts, and closed himself into his quarters. It was almost unbearable. Happy for once that Black had slighted him by not introducing him, he put the Howe/Wraid questions out of his mind for the time being. He needed to sleep, even though he knew what he would dream of.

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	13. Chapter 13

FLASHBACK:

Severus sat in the library staring out the window at the snow. Several months had gone by, and he had mended his friendship with Maya. Then Meena had sent him a rather lavish birthday present: lovely opal cufflinks shaped like starbursts: and Maya had gotten angry again, and hexed Meena's broom, which caused them to loose the first Quidditch game of the season. There had been a fight, and Severus and Maya were back to ignoring each other. Then they had patched things up again, but Maya was extremely suspicious of his supposed relationship with her older sister. It seemed that no matter how much he insisted that it was a completley one-sided manipulation, Maya never could really get the thought that maybe he wanted her out of her head. Severus suspected Meena was making things difficult when he wasn't there to defend his honor. Either way, it didn't matter - the Yule Ball was coming up again, andSeverus was finally old enough to go. He had even already made up his mind to ask her.

She came to their study appointment, late, as usual. She sat at the table across from him, and pulled out her book.

"Hey Sev. Sorry I'm late. Had to have a talk with the Quidditch Captainabout not hexing Meena's broom anymore." She smiled evilly.

He merely nodded. She was leaning over now, looking at his book.

"I don't know why you have to write all over your books, like that. It's such a mess." She poked a quill at his arithmancy book.

"It is sometimes wise to take extended notes to help one in their studies," he said dryly.

"I suppose," she sighed. "Alright. Where do we begin? 20 inches in potions? Or 22 inches in Ancient Runes?" She was flipping idly through her books when a low voice caused them both to freeze, and look up.

"Hello Sev." Meena stode above them, her hand perched on the back of Severus's chair.

"Meena," he acknowleged stiffly.

"What do you want?" Maya asked rudely.

"I wasn't talking to you," she retorted. She turned her attention back to Severus. "Sev, I was wondering ... I thought maybe you would invite me to the Yule Ball with you. I promise to make the evening worth your while," she added silkily.

"Meena! Stop it! You're taking this a little too far, I think." Maya stood, leaning her hands on the table menacingly.

"What, I can't ask my friend Severus to the Ball? A tad bit possessive, are we, Maya?"

"Sod off, Meena. I don't know what you're playing at, but it's really getting old fast."

Meena moved directly behind Severus, and put both hands on his shoulders. He tried to recoil, but her placement was rather firm.

"Maya, can't you grow up?" She smiled coldly at her sister.

Severus didn't know what exactly had happened between the two sisters that had caused such a rift: they had never been this far apart. He made a mental note to ask Maya once she had calmed down. But then something happened that he didn't expect: she stood up, gathered her books, and prepared to leave.

"Fine." She looked at Meena. "Fine, do you understand? FINE. Go off together, into the sunset. Be all happy and disgusting together for a night or two. See if I care." She stood and walked away. When she was a few steps away from the door, she called over her shoulder, "Severus, don't be surprised when you find out she's doing it all to get to me." And she stomped out of the library.

"So, Sev, what do you think?" Meena purred. She leaned down so her hot breath was on his neck. He felt his heartrate rise.

Now or never, he thought. Now or never. He stood, shoving her off of him.

"Meena, I'm beginning to become curious. What ARE you playing at? Don't think I'm naive enough to believe you're actually interested in me." He raised an eyebrow at her. He was quite a bit taller than she was, even at two years younger. She looked up at him seductively.

"Friends, Sev, just friends."

He shoved her aside, and grabbed his books to jog after Maya. Unfortunatley, when he found her, she was deep in conversation with Remus Lupin.

"Have you come to inform me of your formal engagement ot my sister?" She asked saucily.

"Maya, calm yourself. Really." Lupin put a placating hand on her forearm. Severus eyed it dubiously.

"Maya, what exactly is the root of problem between you two?" He asked, ignoring Lupin.

"I went on a date with a boy that she fancied over the summer. That's it. That's the big deal. I didn't even LIKE him like that! I didn't know she fancied him! I just met him, and he seemed a nice chap, so we went to the carnival together. And we had a lovely time. That's it! That's the big secret! When she found out, she had a huge fit, and has been acting like such a git ever since!"

"How did you both meet the same person on separate continents?" He asked.

She shook her head. "I guess he had met her early summer in Ireland. They had a brief romance that I had no idea about. He decided to come with her to California for a weekend in July. He split with her then - before I had even met him - and so she left. He stayed around with some friends, and then we met after that!"

"That's it?" He was relieved. And irate to hear about a summer fling.

"Yes, that's it." She threw her books down and sat on the stone bench in the hall. "So I suppose you two will be very chummy at the ball then?" She said with malice.

"Actually I was going to ask YOU to go with me when she interupted." He looked at her, and then looked pointedly at Remus, who seemed to get the hint.

"I've got to dash off, Maya. But I think I'll tell Sirius that you've already got a date." He walked down the hall.

"Sirius Black was going to ask you?" Severus fumed.

"So it seems. Oh don't look so angry. You know I would much rather go with you than him."

"So are you saying you'll go?"

"Of course, you dumb lummox. Now go away. I want to sulk in peace."

"Very well. If you need help cursing your sister, you know where to find me. But please, for the love of our Quidditch season, not the broom again. Come up with something more imaginitive."

Despite herself, Maya smiled slightly andgave a small laughbefore turning on her heel and walking purposefully down the hall.

The day of the Yule Ball came quickly: Severus barely had time to pull together some sort of formal attire. He walked down to the common room to the surprised gasps of most of the other slytherins.

"Severus Snape is going to the ball?" someone asked.

"Who do you think he got to go with him?" someone else whispered.

Severus ignored them, and sat down near the fire to read his book. He knew it would be a long while before Maya was ready to go.

A small group of Slytherins was sitting near the fire as well, some in formal attire, some ready for the Hogsmeade trip.

"Did you see Maya and Meena's dresses?" one girl was saying. "They must have cost a fortune!"

"I would spend that much if I had it," said another girl. "They are so lucky. I heard Sirius Black asked Maya to the Ball, but she turned him down!"

"She turned down Sirius Black? Is she crazy?"

"Who is she going with?"

"I don't know."

Severus beamed with a little satisfaction, and continued to read, and listen in periodically on the gossip du jour.

Finally, noise from the girls dormitory stairwell caused him to look up. First came Maria in blue, and Verona in black. Then Eliza in red, and Jen in some feathery contraption that made her look like an ostrich. Heather followed in a slinky, shimmering number that Severus was sure would catch the eyes of the professors, and warrant a stern discussion about appropriate attire. Finally Maya came last, in a burgandy gown with a full train behind her. Black satin gloves and black heeled slippers, with black and yellow roses woven into her hair. Severus smiled broadly, relishing the moment when he could claim his date.

The group of girls stood talking and laughing as they put on shawls, fixed shoes, etc. All eyes were on them. It was no secret that these were the six most beautiful girls in Slytherin. Even Heather had grown into herself quite nicely. Maria and Eliza were tall and lean with dark blonde hair and soft features. Verona was a striking, petite girl with huge black eyes and severe black hair. Jen had let her hair grow out, and it now fell in soft ringlets around her well defined body, and Heather had stopped running as much, and gained a womanly figure.

Verona and Jen were both going with tall, athletic footballers from Durmstrang that they had met in Germany the previous summer. Maria was going with the new captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team. Eliza had asked a younger ravenclaw, who everyone was sure would die happy after a date with her. Heather had the handsome Ravenclaw prefect. Severus felt a little giddy and a little cautious about being lumped in with such company, but he stood, none the less, and walked boldly up to Maya. All eyes were on him.

"What is he doing?" one of the gossipy girls at he fire siad to her friend.

"I don't know! This should be good!"

The crowd parted for him. "Maya," he said with a bow, kissing her hand lightly.

"Severus," she smiled. "Are you ready?"

He offered his arm in answer. She linked her own through it, and they started towards the door. Maya didn't seem to notice the complete silence, but Severus did, and it angered him. He threw his head up as high as he could, and made eye contact with every surprised person in the room. Yes, he thought. I am Severus Snape. You all think I'm possibly the biggest loser to ever hit this school, and yet, look who I have on my arm. Maya Howe. And she's gorgeious. So maybe there is more to me than you all thought. With that, he helped Maya out of the room feeling much more secure about the whole affair.

When they reached the great hall, almost everyone turned to stare. Maya, as usual, didn't notice. Or, if she did, she was very good at her ability to be above the eyes of the crowd. They found a table, and sat.

"Maya,you look wonderful. That dress is an excellent color on you."

"Oh, Severus, thanks you! You look amazing yourself. I always think you the best in full formal attire. You're so ... proud and well-bred that it seems to fit together excellently." She smiled. "And, I must say that I like your hair long like that."

"It's always been long."

"Yes, and I'm saying I like it." She smiled. "Shall we dance?"

"I would love to," said a voice from above them. Sirius Black, looking quite fetching in his robes, stood above them.

"Sirius," Maya said as politely as possible.

"Maya." He nodded. "You're looking quite lovely tonight. A vision."

"Thank you Sirius. Where is your date, might I ask?"

"Lily? She's having a dance with James, at the moment. I thought I would take this opportunity to extend an olive branch." He looked at the two of them. "Severus, if I may steal your lovely date for a moment? I promise to return her unharmed."

Severus looked uncomfortable.

"Come on then, Severus. One dance. Half a dance. You can cut in at any time." He pulled Maya up.

"Very well, Black." he said with rancor. "One dance. ONE."

Maya looked at him helplessly as if to say, 'it's worth it if they will leave us alone for the evening', and then walked to the floor with Sirius.

"Thank you Maya. You really are a wonderful dancer." Sirius twirled her softly on the floor.

"Thank you, Sirius." she returned, still unsure of his motives.

"You looked so beautiful, I wanted to give you at least one decent dance before the night ended." he whispered softly. Maya looked at him perplexed.

"What do you mean?"

"You don't think 'ol Snivellus over there actually knows how to dance, do you?" He laughed out loud. "You poor thing! You had no idea what you were getting into." He tried to twirl her again, but she had frozen in place.

"This is what you consider and Olive branch?" she almost shook with fury. "Sod off, Black. You really are sad." She picked up the train of her dress and marched through the surprised and interested dancing couples to reclaim Severus. He was looking quite miserable by himself.

"Severus, come then." She took his hand in hers, and slowly pulled him up to her. "Dance with me."

"What about Black?"

"What about Black. You know I dislike him. I didn't want to be around him for longer than I had to." She smiled reassuringly at Severus. "Let's go."

"Maya, I understand if you want to be seen with ... " he paused.

"With?" she prodded.

"I know that this is probably social suicide for you."

She guffawed loudly, causing quite a few stares. "It is not! I'm having a lovely evening with my charming friend Severus, who, by the way, is a wonderful dancer."

"People are staring, Maya. They are staring at us. It's like Beauty and the Beast, and I don't appreciate beingthe Beast."

"Severus," she put up her hand. "I don't care if people stare. That's their choice. I am going to have fun tonight. I had a horrible time last year,and I'm going to make up for it right now. LET them watch." With that, she lead him out to the middle of the dance floor. Another waltz began, and she held him confidently and tightly. He reciprocated, and they began to dance, he with all the stiff gentlemanly etiquette he could muster, her with all the sexy flare she could throw in. She was right. People stared for a moment, looked pleasantly surprised, began to gossip, and then, eventually moved on to something else. By the end of the evening no one was looking at him like Snivellus Snape, the beast who had somehow managed to bring Maya Howe to the ball. As the floor began to clear and the night wore on, he and Maya took a strole through the garden. They looked up at the sky, and Maya said dreamily,

"Do you remember last year? You kissed me after Sirius Black had managed to make such an ass of himself." She turned to him. "That was really nice of you."

He turned away from her scrutinous gaze. "The least I could do," he muttered.

"Severus, I don't want to make you feel awkward, at the moment," she continued slowly. "But I would very much like it if you would kiss me again right now."

He turned in sirprise and looked into her dark eyes. She sensed his shock, and attempted to explain.

"I'm not trying to change our relationship or anything, so don't panic," she smiled a little. "I just think it would be a delightfully romantic end to a delightfully romantic evening."

He nodded slightly, and turned to face her fully.

"Here? In the garden?" he asked.

"Why not?"

"I assumed you had another place in mind."

"Like my bed? Come now Severus, don't over think the moment, or it will pass." She grabbed the front of his black robes and pulled him towards her.

"Very well ..." he muttered as he leaned into her. She met him halfway, pulling him right up against her body. He found his arms around her back, encircling her tiny waist, pulling her close to him. It began as it had before: one chaste kiss followed by a longer, more prolonged one. But then something happened: Maya placed a hand behind his neck, and deepened the kiss. Severus, caught off guard, moaned lightly into her mouth, which she seemed to take a signal that she was going about this the right way. They embraced and kissed for another few seconds before they each noticed the kisses getting more passionate, more longing. He pulled her as tightly against his as he could, breaking the kiss and burying his head in her neck. She ran her hands through his hair gently.

"Thank you Severus," she cooed. "For everything." They stood like that for quite a long moment until they heard voices getting closer. The ball had ended, and everyone was retiring to their dormatories. Severus and Maya seperated, and linked arms once again. They walked back to the Slytherin dorms in a satisfied silence.

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	14. Chapter 14

Present:

"Miss Howe, excellent. Thank you so much for coming." Dumbledore pushed out a chair with his wand as Maya walked in holding Appian in her arms. She dropped him onto the floor, and he happily began exploring the feet under the table. Aria sat at the table with them, as did Aurthur Weasley, Tonks and Black. Remus was noticeably missing, and the tall man from the night four days previous when she first arrived was sitting by himself in front of the fire.

"Can I ask where Remus is?" She looked from Albus to Sirius.

"Remus is ... indisposed at the time being," Sirius muttered.

Maya couldn't help it. She laughed out loud. They all looked at her, even the man over by the fire glanced up.

"I'm sorry, I just ... deja vu." She awkwardly put her hand over her mouth. "It's just that, when we were younger, every time Remus wasn't around, Sirius would always say, 'he's indisposed right now', and it was ..." a look of understanding dawned on her. "Ahhh, I see. Okay. Sorry." She looked a little embarrassed, and Snape had to snort. Some things never changed.

"Maya," Aria began, "I seem to be the only confused one here - could you please explain to me what the DEAL is?" She seemed distressed.

"I'm here, as most of you know, to shed some light on the 'tale of the stolen necklace', as it were." Aria nodded, and Maya continued. "So," she began, drawing everyon's attention, "As you know, the four of us come from a very long, descendant line of wizards." Everyone nodded. "It's a bit of a family legend, really, but I've found that it does hold...certain relevance in modern predicaments."

"I'm sorry, but you're being a bit cryptic." Said Tonks, scratching her pink head with her wand. "I wasn't aware of any wonky 'Howe' family secrets."

"No, no ... the Von Tosts. Out mother was a Von Tost."

"Well, that explains it then. Nasty bunch, those Von Tosts. No offense." Tonks amended her statement.

"None taken," Aria snorted. "We don't like them either."

"Meena likes them," Maya muttered.

"Let's not get into that." Aria snapped.

"Sorry. Anyway, yes, Ms. Tonks. They were a nasty bunch. Lots of dark wizards and such, going practically a thousand years back or something so preposterous," she waved her hands around as she spoke. "Among many old family heirlooms and traditions, one of the most treasured was Aunsten Von Tost's jewelry collection. Aunsten, unfortunatley, is so far removed from anyone even remotely living, that no one really knows anything about it. The story behind it, I'm sure, has been mostly concocted and greatly changed in the seven hundred some odd years since she died."

"You're related to Aunsten Von Tost?" Sirius looked slightly bemused.

"I suppose if you think someone living seven hundred years ago can be considered family, then yes. I am related ... REMOTELY ... to Aunsten Von Tost."

Suddenly, a commotion across the room caused everyone to jerk their heads up. A lamp had just been toppled, and Appian was barking savagely at an unseen inruder.

"Ron, good Lord! That had better not be you!" came Mrs. Weasley's voice from the kitchen. She rushed in, stepped neatly over the small puff of a dog, andfelt around blindly in front of her for a moment until she seemed to grab something. Maya watched in amusement as she whippeda sort of cloak off of Ron and Harry. She tossed it at the two boys.

"Ronald! That was one of the better lamps in this room!"

"I'm sorry, Mum! I was caught a little off guard, you know? Maya is related to Aunsten Von Tost!"

"I don't care if she's related to Gilderoy Lockhart! It still isn't any of your concern!"

Maya giggled behind her hand. "It's really alright, Molly. If they want to stay, they can. It might be a bit boring, is all."

"Boring?" Ron squeaked. "Aunsten Von Tost was the most evil witch in Germany! How could this be boring?" He pulled up a chair, and watched Maya with great interest. Harry stood behind him, looking slightly confused.

"Wait a tick, who's Aunsten Von Tost?" he whispered to Ron.

"Oh, she did LOADS of bad stuff. Not as bad as Voldemort, mind you, but this was the 1300s. I'm sure everyone then thought she was plenty scary."

Maya rolled her eyes. "So it would seem," she laughed. "Tell me, Ron, what do you know about her?"

"I read somewhere that she had a ring that made her able to read minds! And bring people back from the dead! And it made her so powerful that she couldn't be killed!"

"How is it then, Mr. Weasley, that she is, and has been for some time now, dead?" asked the man in front of the fire. Maya cocked her head. There was something about his voice that she recognized.

Ron sat, looking disappointed. 'Poor kid,' she thought.

"Is that all true?" asked Harry, suddenly very concerned. "I mean, if Voldemort has that ring, well, don't we need to get it back?"

"There is no ring." Aria said sharply, looking quite bored. "It's all just a legend. She has a very nice collection of jewerly that is, if nothing else, very old. It's not even worth all that much. Mostly semi-precious stuff that I could get in a gold setting at Macy's."

"Ahh, but if it were worthless, Voldemort, I suspect wouldn't be so interested in it," Albus pointed out.

"I just think this whole thing is ridiculous," she sniped.

"You always have - now, can I finish? As I recall, you were the one who suggested I explain this to them..."

"Fine, fine. Sorry. Go ahead." Aria crossed her arms and pouted low in her chair. Harry smiled. It was like a female version of the Weasleys' sibling rows. Never having had any siblings, he found it all highly amusing.

"Anyway, through the years, all this jewerly keeps getting passed down - I have no way of knowing how much of it is actually hers. I'm sure some has been added by all the subsequent owners. I know I plan to add my wedding ring to the collection when I give it away."

Snape felt his jaw tighten. Wedding ring.He had been on the fence as to whether or not he would introduce himself, and now he had decided not to. Absolutely not. His attention was drawn back to the table when Appian started barking loudly.

"Yes, I am," Maya was cooing at the little dog. "I'm giving it away! Yes I am! Should have gotten rid of it a long time ago! Lucky I lost it, and didn't find it again til just last month! Yeeees!"

He felt his clenched fists loosen up again. Clearly the marriage was over.

"Either way, the idea behind the stuff is that it is supposed to all go to one person. But the stipulations of the will got looser and looser with each generation. Especially when it got handed down through men whenever there was a shortage of daughters. Our great-aunt had it, and she willed it to my mother. Mom never really got along well with her family, so she just split the thing up. Four daughters, four people to give jewelery to. She didn't really believe any of the myth either."

"What's the myth?" Ron asked. "Who got the Aunsten's ring?"

"Oh, it's this thing about how the rocks all have certain powers, and how they all have to be united for any of it to work, or some nonsense." Aria finished. "I've had a bunch of it for most of my life, and it's never done anything to help me. OR Meena."

"You never went to the trouble to figure out how any of them worked," Maya retorted. "And Meena's just an idiot. Athena uses them all the time. So do I." She looked at Dumbledore. "While we don't really know, it is my opinion that Aunsten put special charms on each of her pieces to bring out, in a quite literal sense, each stone's already inate magical use. Probably because she wasn't a good enough witch to use them by themselves." She snorted. "But either way, when you look at each of the pieces individually, none of them really do anything all that significant." She looked at Ron. "Sorry, Ron, no ring that brings people back from the dead." He seemed greatly disappointed.

"But you said that if Voldemort had the Bloodstone, it was a disaster!" Black sputtered.

"Well, here's the thing," she began carefully. "I think that when the stuff was all split apart, it lost most of its magic. Closest when united, and all that. But they still retain a bit of what they had before. Like I said, I use mine all the time, and quite frankly, Ireland would NOT have wone the World cup without their seeker who SHOULD have been out for the season with a burst liver. Athena healed him in a week. A WEEK. That's impressive, I don't care who you are." She steepled her fingers and continued. "Now, here's the problem as I see it: the one stone that seemed to have the most power of the entire collection was the bloodstone, which, of course, is the one currently in Voldomort's possession. He performed Sectusempra, and Aria didn't even bleed. Oh, she was messed up on the inside, but on the outside ... you know. Can you imagine what that stone would be able to do if it were united with all the rest in the collection?"

"Ahhh," Sirius nodded, suddenly understanding. "So we just can't let him get the rest of the jewelry."

"We have to get that bloodstone BACK." Maya finished. "It's quite the nasty little rock, definitely not a good thing for him to have."

"What exactly is it supposed to do?" Tonks asked.

"Well, obviously it stops bleeding. It creates physical power. Heals instantly. Strengthens the mind. It wards off accidents, disease, pain, you name it. In the wrong hands, it may even be able to counteract the cruciatus that I hear Voldomort is so fond of." She looked to Ron. "It's the closest thing to the ring you've heard about that I can think of."

"That does present a problem," said Dumbledore, not giving away any hint of worry.

"But it doesn't give him any more power," Harry added, trying to be optimistic.

"The best defense is a good offense." Aria pointed out with a roll of her eyes.

"Besides all that. My fear is what he will do to get the rest of Aunsten's stuff. Especially from Aria, since he will assume she has the rest of it all."

"He didn't kill her last time," pointed out Sirius. "Maybe he needs her alive."

"Why didn't he just put her under the imperious curse and have her fetch it all for him?" asked Ron. Everyone looked at him as if it were a stupid question, and then slowly realized that he had a valid point. Harry nodded fervently in agreement.

"I suppose he needs me to show him how it all works," Aria stated. "But that doesn't explain why he didn't curse me. It also doesn't prevent him from killing me once he gets everything."

They all looked around in silence. After a moment, Ron cleared his throat hesitantly.

"Well, Voldomort thought that Dumbledore had sent her, right?" Everyone nodded. "Well, if I were Voldomort, and I thought that Dumbledore had sent Aria just to show that we had all these crystals on OUR side so I would try to steal them, I wouldn't put anyone under the Imperious. I mean, it's a bit like walking into a trap, isn't it? Dumbledore would of course EXPECT me to do that. I mean, if I were Voldomort." He looked around with his face scrunched up. He seemed to have confused himself, and was hoping that someone had followed what he was saying so they could explain it to him. Again, everyone looked at him.

"This kid is smart!" exclaimed Aria. "If I could give you points, I would. Like 200 of them."

"I guess that sort of made sense," squinted Maya.

"But I think it's a safe assumption that whatever his motivation for letting you go, he has a plan for getting the rest of the crystals." Dumbledore. "I would reccommend caution for the four of you. And perhaps you should find all the pieces of Aunsten's rather extensive collection - I would be very interested to know what each one does."

Maya nodded. She called her little dog, and they got up to leave the room. The rest of the members stood uneasily, and began to continue with their business. Snape, once again, snuck through the kitchen door to apparate as far away from Maya Howe as possible.

More soon. I just got my computer fixed, so now I can actually connect to the internet. Thanks, Popess2


	15. Chapter 15

Warning: Spoilers for HBP. As if you all didn't know who the HPB was anyway. R/R!

FLASHBACK:

Spring had come to Hogwarts, and Maya had convinced Severus to sit out in the sun, rather than in the library. They lazed quietly on the lawn, many other students taking advantage of the glorius weather. The only thing Severus noted about the weather's imporvement that he enjoyed was Maya's switch from her ridiculous winter costumes of cloaks, furs, and sweaters to a lighter choice of shorter, more flattering spring-wear. Her damn cotton ball of a dog was chasing butterflys at their feet.

"Ugh," said Maya, looking out through the throngs of students. "I get a dog, and all of the sudden EVERYBODY has to have a dog. Look at that," she snorted, motioning to James Potter, who was throwing a stick for a huge Shaggy beast of a cur.

"Yes, apparently they refer to it as 'Snuffles'," Severus droned. He was half-asleep in the sun, with his forearms covering his face to prevent sunburn of his sallow skin.

"SNUFFLES!" she erupted in laughter. "Oh Jesus. Where did he get it?"

"Oh, it's not his," Severus peered up at her. "It lives in the dark forest, and just comes out to play with Potter and Lupin every now and again."

"Not Sirius?" Maya asked. "Does he not LIKE dogs?"

"Do you see him out there now?" asked Severus pointedly. "I don't pretend to know the inner-workings of Black's mind. If I did I would have to kill m yself."

Appian noticed the shaggy dog and began to yap excitedly. Maya tried to grab him, but he was off like a rocket towards his fellow canine.

"Bollucks," she muttered. "Now I have to go over there." She stood, but noticed that the large dog was trotting in her direction, Appian bouncing happily in tow. Snuffles came over, and dropped into a laying position, his head in Maya's lap. James was not far behind.

"Snuffles! Stop it," he prodded the dog with the toe of his shoe. Snuffles simply looked at him, and reached up to lick Maya's face.

"Oh, it's alright. I love dogs." She reached down and nuzzled Snuffles' nose with her own.

"Not this one, you don't," James muttered. "Oy, Snape, out in the sun? Don't see that very often."

Severus just looked at him, saying nothing. Maya quickly changed the subject.

"Ready for the Quidditch finals next week?" she asked with a smirk. Last week against Hufflepuff, James had managed to collide in mid-air with not only a bludger, but a hufflepuff beater as well. His collarbone had been mended, as well as several fingers and a wrist.

"Ready as I'll ever be! Don't be messing with Meena's broom this time. When we win, I want to win for real, not because your seeker's broom kept turning her upsidedown," he grinned. "Although, that was pretty funny. She is a bit top-heavy, if you know what I mean," he wiggled his eyebrows.

"Very funny, very funny." Maya rolled her eyes, smiling in spite of herself. "Actually, I got the idea from Severus." She patted his leg, jumping a bit as Snuffles gave a low growl. "What's with that one?"

"Dogs don't like me," Severus eyes the dog wearily.

"Oh pshaw. Appian likes you just fine. But yes, James, Severus thought of the particular charm, I just stole it and modified it for a broomstick." She didn't tell the whole story, which actually involved Severus saying that he wanted to come up with something that would give greater proportional weight to objects, so that the weight of James Potter's big head wouldcause him to fall on his face.

"Good work there, Snivellus. So you're the one we should thank for the victory! Hats off to you!" He bowed deeply. Severus looked at him with a deep loathing.

"Alright, off with you." Maya picked up the stick and tossed it as far as she could. Snuffles eagerly jumped up and chased it happily. "See you on the pitch, Potter." She saluted.

"You too! And hey, keep Sev here out of the sun - I can only imagine what he would look like all pink with sunburn!" He smiled at the two of them, and dashed of after his dog. Maya rolled her eyes, shook her head and prepared to settle back into the grass, when she noticed Sev still staring at Potter with malice.

"Oh, let it go," she chirped. "He's a pompous ass. So what. So are most of the people in our house, and you don't hate them the way you hate James."

"I wish I could make his head explode," he murmured.

"Don't say that: I can't manipulate that idea to work on a broomstick, and can you imagine what the headmaster would say if I made Meena's head explode on the pitch?" She chortled.

"Sorry, I have to go," he said distractedly, standing up and dusting off his robes.

"What? Sev? Where are you oging?" But he had already taken off towards the castle.

"Ugh," she complained to Appian. "Men!" And she closed her eyes, intent on enjoying the sun with or without her friend.

Later that evening, Maya went in search of her friend. She was about to give up when she heard light cursing and squealing laughter coming from a rarely used classroom in the lowest parts of the dungeon. She crinkled her brows together, and pushed open the door. She almost laughed out loud at the sight she was greeted with: Severus with a bubbling cauldron on one desk, with several books spread around him, his wand pulled and shaking with the anger radiated into his fists, pointing at Peeves. Peeves was whirling aorund making screeching and squealing noises. Maya noticed several of the desks had been turned over, she guessed an interupted an epic battle between Sev and the polterguist.

"PEEVES!" she yelled. "Don't make me go get Appian," she threatened. She hade discovered, much to her amusement, that Peeves hated her little dog with a passion. He screwed up his face, and squealed something unitelligeable as he disappeared with a poof! through the far wall.

She laughed, and looked at Sev. Her laughter abated abruptly as she noticed his face. He was shaking slightly, and his eyes had grown sunken and black. He seemed, different.

"I found it," he said, his voice heavy. Then he smiled. "I figured it out."

"Figured what out?" she asked, approaching him slowly.

"How to make Potter's head explode." He smiled fully.

"Serverus SNAPE. You will NOT explode Potter's, Lupin's or EVEN Sirius Black's head!" She sighed in defeat.

"Don't worry," he snarled. "I only think I've found it. It took a toll though,... Look at me!" he had his head hanging down. "Dark magic ..." he shook his head.

"Well," she put a placating hand on his back. "What does it do?" she said softly.

"At first, I really just wanted to explode his head. Not that I would, mind you, but the power to be able to do so would have been enough." He looked up, and then went to a book, and rapidly flipped some pages. "Then," he continued, "I thought, 'pain is a much better tool than death.' Slower, much more satisfying."

"Okay, sure. That makes sense." She was beginning to be concerned.

"I found a way to explode his heart, and parts of the sinus cavity. And then I found THIS." He held up a book triumphantly. She couldn't even read most of it, as old as the rune scribblings were. The desciphering must have taken ages.

"I don't know what that is, Sev."

"I'm not sure I do either, but I think it's just what I want. If I take some of this spell, and some of the other spells that I've found ... I think I can add them to the rictasempra basic hex. I tried it on Peeves, but he just flew around like a bat and knocked over all those desks." He curled his lip in disgust.

"So, try it on me," she offered bravely.

"Are you mad? If this does even remotely what I think it should," he shook his head. "You would NEVER forgive me."

"Then try it on a rat," she said, as she spied one scurrying in the corner. "Accio rat!" she called, and the surprised beast floated over towards her. She put it on the desk, and stupified it so it couldn't escape.

Severus shrugged, backed up a step, and yelled with power in his voice,

"Sectasempra!"

The rat squealed, and blood spurted from his face.

"Oh, Sev, you game the rat a bloody nose. For God's Sake." She picked it up and looked at it sympathetically.

"What!" he spat with disappointment and disgust. "That can't be right." He grabbed the rat, looked at it, and then quickly dipped it in the healing cauldron. When he picked it up, it was more or less good as new. Still a bit twichy. He set it down.

"Well, that settles that, I suppose. That just can't be right!" He began to flip pages again.

"Okay, I can handle a bloody nose. Come on Sev, try it on me." She looked at him with sympathy. "I mean, it's hard to tell on a rat. Maybe there's some sort of excruciating pain that goes with it," she added.

"I must have done something wrong," he was muttering. He had his potions book out, and he was scribbling something in the margins.

"Severus." she said with boldness. "Give me a bloody nose this instant!" She put a hand over his writing hand, silencing the quill. He closed his eyes in momentary annoyance.

"Alright," he said, softly, almost. ... dangerously? He stood, pointed his wand at her, and tried again.

"Sectasempra!" He closed his eyes, afraid of what he had done.

When he didn't hear anything, he looked up ...

And was horrified to find Maya had been blown back a dozen feet, and was covered in blood on her face, neck and chest. She was hyperventilating quickly and shallowly.

"Maya! Dear God," he ran to her, and helped he to her knees.

She looked at him with fear in her eyes, opened her mouth, and whimpered in pain. Her eyes were running almost continuous tears. She bit down on her lip to keep from screaming, and grabbed the table leg nearest her. She held it so tightly that it tipped over, and crashed next to them. He jumped up, dipped his wand quickly in the healing potion on the desk, and jumped back down to her side. He helped her now shaking, writhing form to the ground, and furiously ripped open her shirt. He tried an incantation, waving his wand over her. Nothing happened. He was on the verge of tears himself. He tried again, something else. Nothing was working. Her chest looked as if it had been ripped open by a hippogryph. He dashed over, picked up the cauldron though it burned his hands fiercly, and brought some to her lips. She shrieked at the burning as some of the liquid seared down her throat. He dipped his hand in and tried rubbing some of it over her chest. At least that seemed to stop some of the bleeding.

He closed his eyes, held his wand above her, and thought of every counter to dark magic; every ancient piece of magic he knew. He finally grabbed her upper arm hard, clenched his teeth, and pointed his wand at her wounds. He thought his spells hard at her, sending his physical strength through her as well. He watched as the wound slowly seemed to sew itself up, knitting together slowly, but purposefully. When it seemed to be completely sealed, he let go, and began to concentrate on her face.

"My wand," she gasped out, pointing towards the desk. Severus scrambled up, and grabbed it, dumping it next to her. She leaned up, dripping dark blood all over his hands. She pointed towards the door and said unsteadily, "Accio Aunsten's turquoise!" They waited, and nothing happened, until suddenly, a small locked box floated through the door at tremendous speed, and came to almost a screeching halt next to Maya. "Alohomora!" she wheezed, and the box popped open. Inside was a small pendant, shaped like what Severus recognized to be an ancient hyroglyph for the human soul. She grabbed it, looked at Severus with great fear, and said softly,

"Forgive me." He had no idea what she was talking about, so was completely unprepared for what happened next. She slipped the pendant over hear head, and slowly, the blood on her face stopped flowing. Slowly, her pain seemed to be easing. But at the same time, he watched her eyes, and they began to glaze over, and swirl. She held his hand in hers, squeezing tighter and tighter, gasping for air. Her eyes were practifcally glowing, and the pendant was beginning to steam against her breast.

"Maya, for Merlin's sake!" He ripped the pendant off of her, tossing it to the floor. He looked at her, for a moment as her eyes stopped swirling. He was horrified to see that they had gone from thedark blue he had remembered gazing into to a bright almost grotesque golden color. She looked at him, and for a moment, he had no idea who she was.

"Maya?" He grabbed her by the arms, and shook her hard.

"Severus," came the reply, but the voice was deep, as if she were possessed.

"Maya! Dear God, what have you done!" he demanded. He watched as her face screwed up, and she seemed to contort for a moment, and then lay still. He noticed in gratitude that she was still breathing, so he waited.

A moment later she seemed to stir, and she opened her eyes. They were still, he noted in slight anguish, shimmering gold.

"Sev?" she asked, and thankfully her voice had returned.

"Are you alright?" he breathed rapidly.

"I think so - oh Sev," she began to cry silently, tears running down her face.

"What is that thing?" he asked angrily, pointing to the discarded pendant.

"It's ancient magic," she began. "Handed down through my family. It's supposed to, well, among many things, heal wounds, and bones and such," she stopped and took a deep breath. "But it was Aunsten's - and I shouldn't have put it on. The turquoise takes on the characteristics of the wearer ... I guess it took a small part of Aunsten when she died. She was in there," she said, and closed her eyes. "I can feel her inside of me," she murmured in horror.

"Maya," Severus tried in a strangled voice. He didn't know who Aunsten was. He didn't know what had just happened. He reached down and held her. She grasped him tightly and held on, crying softly into his robes. He held her there for a long time, not really knowing what else to do.


	16. Chapter 16

BACK TO PRESENT:

Maya was having a wonderful time at 12 Grimmauld place. As stressful as the situation at hand was, she felt that this was just the vacation she had been waiting for. She had been here almost a week, and she was getting along just fine with everyone. She had gotten caught up with Aria and Athena, both of whom she was more than excited to see again. She and Lupin (once Lupin returned form his mysterious leave of absense) had spent long hours in front of the fire discussing theater and the arts. While he may not have understood the intricacies of the rock opera, he certainly was knowegeable enough to have rollicking debates with Maya over her preference of post-modernism, or her dislike of Wagner, Hayden and the Baroque period in general.

She had also made a point to spend some time with Sirius Black: he seemed to have become more intense in his later years, but after hearing his tales of Azkaban, she could understand why. She had even answered a great many question his mother's portrait had about the dark wizards of the Von Tost lineage, even though the painting's morbid fascination worried her more than slightly.

Finally, she had spent more than her share of evenings discussing the business ventures of 'Weasley Wizarding Wheezes' with Fred and George, who were quickly becoming her favorite Weasley's of the group. Ron, Ginny, Hermione and Harry had joined in many of their nights of exploding snap with Athena, often creating huge tournaments. It seemed to her that they were very well-ajusted for all that they had been through, especially James and Lily's son.

"Do you play Quidditch," she had asked Harry one evening out of curiosity.

"Yeah," he had answered. "Quidditch is the best!"

"Are you a seeker like your father?"

Harry had nodded with a grin.

"Are you as good as he was?" she asked with a smile.

He had smiled in embarrassment. "I doubt that," he said, blushing slightly. "I hear he was brilliant." She had smiled genuinely then - he may have looked like his father and had the same courageous instincts and happy mannerisms, but the bravado that had so annoyed her in James was non-existent.

"You know, I have some pictures you might like to look at," she had told him one evening. "I played Quidditch on the Slytherin team for a few years, and your father and I always loved to play against each other."

Harry looked more than interested. "You were in Slytherin? In my father's year?"

"I was," she said, looking through her purse. She pulled out a small booklet, spoke a charm over it so that it grew into a rather large album. "This is my photo album: it holds," she looked up, as if to count in her head, "thousands of pictures practically. Watch." She pointed her wand and said clearly, "Quidditch, fourth year!" She turned the book around, and opened it. Everyone crowded around to peek.

"Athena, is that you?" asked Hermione excitedly, pointing to a picture of Athena, watching her sisters play from the stands.

Athena looked, and laughed out loud. "Oh dear, how thin I was. Yes, yes, that's me. Well, a small portion of me, anyways."

"Look, Harry, it's you dad!" Ron exclaimed. They all looked, and saw various pictures of James Potter flying around the pitch. They watched as he ducked, swerved around a Ravenclaw beater, and jumped, catching the snitch.

"Yeah, he was quite the player. I have pictures of practically every game of the season." She flipped pages showing members of all four teams swooping madly on brooms.

"That was one of the best Quidditch years," Athena agreed. "Every team was good!"

"This is amazing," Harry said softly, and Maya felt her heart crack a little. From what she gathered, the boy knew practically nothing of his parents.

"Keep it," she said. She waved a locking charm over it. "There you are. Now it won't ever accidently change over to pictures of my wedding if you say the wrong thing." She rolled her eyes.

"Are you sure?" he breathed.

"I've got loads of them," she waved him off. "They all have the same photos. They're practically begging to be given off."

"Wow! Thanks, Maya. Thanks loads!" He and Ron continued to look through the book with great interest.

"Maya," Hermione said slowly, with a look of some amusement on her face. "If you were a Slytherin when Harry's dad was in school, then you must have known Snape."

The Weasleys, Harry and Hermione were all completely unprepared when Maya dropped her purse and exploded in laughter.

"Severus Snape?" She giggled. "Of course I knew him! We were good chums." She shook her head in merriment. "How on Earth did you hear about him?"

"Oh," Athena gave a look of embarassment, and stood up to leave the room. "I've got to run. Cheerio!"

Maya shook it off, and looked back to Harry, Ron and Hermione.

"He didn't like my dad very much,." Harry brooded.

"He certainly did not," Maya said. "But I fear the dislike was fairly mutual. They did some mean things to him, but he was always quite good at exacting his revenge." She shook her head again, still trying to control her glee. "I wouldn't worry about stories you hear from Sirius or Lupin," she added. "Your father was a jovial chap. Little full of himself at times, but he was good-looking and a hell of a Quidditch player. I guess that's reason enough." She was relieved to see that Harry looked much more at ease about the whole conversation. "Anyway," she said, curiosity overtaking her. "What do you know about Severus?"

"Well, Professor Snape is-" Hermione began, but was interupted by Maya grabbing her hand in surprise.

"PROFESSOR? He teaches? Children? God help us all," she rolled her eyes, and Ron cracked up.

"Yes," Hermione continued. "He's the potions master at Hogwarts. Didn't you know? I was sure you would have seen him. He's been here several times since you arrived."

"He's been here? And my sisters didn't tell me?" She had an expression that was awed and horrified and angry. "Black and Lupin didn't tell me? NO ONE told me!" She stood and began to pace. "He's the tall, dark wizard who always sits by himself and leaves before everyone else, isn't he?" Maya realized out loud. The children all nodded. "And he teached at Hogwarts you say?"

"Yeah," answered Ron. "In the dungeons. Bit of a git, if you ask me. Don't know what your sister sees in him." He was shushed loudly by Hermione, who hit him hard in the arm.

Maya turned around. "What? My sister? Which one?"

"Nevermind Ron," said Hermione apologetically. "He talks without thinking."

"Which sister?" she asked again, low and dangerous. Hermione gave Ron an exasperated look that clearly said, 'Now you've done it.'

"Well," Harry began, "there was a bit of gossip that we heard from Jordan,"

"Who heard from Parvati," supplied Ginny.

"Who overheard form Neville telling Lavender in Herbology class," added Hermione.

"That he saw professor Snapoe getting cozy with ... Meena ... one morning." Ron finished.

"Really." Maya said coldly. "Well, if he wants to get involved with that trash, that's his business." She stood and stormed out of the room, yelling for Athena as she went.

"Ronald! See what you did! You ruined a perfectly nice conversation." Hermione huffed at him.

"Really, I should think she'd be more upset that her SISTER was getting involved with SNAPE than the other way around," he squeaked defensively. "I mean, if my sister were involved with the likes of him,"

"Ew," put in Ginny, a horrified look on her face. "How you could even HAVE that thought ..." she made a wretching noise.

"Guys," interupted Harry. "Look!" He pointed to a picture. There, in the stands of the Slytherin Quidditch pitch was Maya and Athena hugging each other after a victory, and then in turn, kissing a sour-looking boy in all black on the cheek. A boy who could be no one else than a fourteen-year-old Severus Snape.

AUTHORS NOTE: tHAT SECTIO IS MY FAVORITE SO FAR IN THIS STORY ... HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT AS MUCH AS ME!

Maya stormed through the halls of Hogwarts the next morning, Appian following close behind her, nipping at her heels. She turned the corner to head down into the dungeons when she ran directly into Remus Lupin and a rather large dog coming, she assumed from Dumbledore's office.

"Maya?" he asked.

"Lupin!" she raged. "You have a lot of explaining to do. Why didn't you and Sirius tell me Severus was here!"

The large dog growled loudly.

"Snuffles!" Lupin bit out. The dog calmed itself. "Maya, really, we felt that anything that existed between you and Severus was, well, between you and Severus." He paused. "Honestly, we were all scared to death to get in the way."

Maya stamped her foot and stared bullets at them. "Tell me where he is."

"In the dungeons, but Maya, he has a class right now. I wouldn't go in there just yet,"

"I don't give a fig if he's in the middle of open-heart surgery!" she called over her shoulder as she marched down the corridor.

Lupin looked at Snuffles. "I feel we should get as far away from here as possible," he whispered. Snuffles nodded in agreement. They both quickened their step.

Snape was in the middle of bullying some of his more frightened second year students when the door to his classroom flew open. He looked up, and realized in horror that Maya Howe stood in his doorway. The students all looked wide-eyed at the woman staring at their potions master. This was the second time in so many weeks that Snape had had a run-in with a mysterious, beautiful woman. Gossip would fly tonight.

"Miss Howe," he said through clenched teeth.

"Severus," she said with venom, and some obvious pain.

"I fear, Miss Howe, that I am in the middle of class. Perhaps I can help you when my pupils have been excused," he strongly suggested. The class was swiveling their heads from one side of hte room to the other, much to Snape's disgust.

"Oh, of course, PROFESSOR," she spat. "I'll just wait in your study." She walked up the aisle of the room.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," he said in low tones.

"There are a lot of things you wouldn't do if you were me. Like, not tell me you were sitting across the room from me this whole time!" He noticed with frustration that her lip was quivering ever so slightly. Her yellow eyes were staring him down with fury. She walked up to the door of his study, and threw it open. Severus closed his eyes, awaiting the reaction that was sure to come when Maya saw that Meena had already made herself comfortable with a cup of tea in Snape's study.

"I see," she seethed. She looked from her sister to Snape with a look that was beyond emotional. "I hope you two are very happy together." She sniffed, tryingto retain some of her dignity. "Don't worry, I'm leaving. Today. You two can solve this little bloodstone mystery yourselves. Don't ask for any more help from me, becasue I couldn't give a rat's ass if Voldomort kills you BOTH!" She looked at Snape, who looked as if he were about to reach across his desk and strangle her. Only the collective gasp form the room full of students prevented them from physically harming each other.

"Class Dismissed. Get out of here NOW," Snape yelled, and the students were only too happy to comply. He had never seen them move so fast. In seconds, the room was empty. He stepped up to Maya, and grabbed her wrist as hard as he could. They both knew he was barely controlling himself. "Don't EVER interupt my class again. Especially not with your petty, childish insecurities." He threw her arm to her side.

"Are you trying to threaten me, you bastard?" She laughed in his face, which only infuriated him more. "What are you going to do? Curse me? Nothing you've never bloody done before." And with that, she ripped open the front of her shirt, and pulled the lapels apart revealing a dark, slash-shaped scar on her naked chest. "Remember that?" she spat. "You don't frighten me, PROFESSOR. Don't think that just becasue you're all high and mighty in Dumbledore's favor you can treat me the way you have been. I don't care if you become the head Death Eater! You still couldn't be more of a despicable human being than you're being right this very second."

Something had come into Snape's eyes, and he was transfixed by the scar. He reached up with one hand, and barely traced it with the tip of his finger. The skin between her breasts was warm and soft, and he felt an upwelling of emotion: but mostly, he wanted to throw up. This was made worse when Meena stood next to him, and purred over her glass of tea,

"Oh, but Sev IS a death eater. Didn't he tell you?" She looked at Maya mock-sympathetically.

And Maya pulled back, and punched her in the face.

"Bitch," she spat out. "It's one thing to do this when we're kids. You're married, you tramp! Can't you grow up? You've ruined SO MUCH!" The last bit was the final straw. She burst into angry tears, and sank down into a desk. Meena stood angrily, holding her face. Snape couldn't really see, but he knew she would be sporting quite the black eye the next day if she didn't get a strong healing spell. Meena looked from Maya to Snape, and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Snape looked at Maya uncomfortably. She had stopped crying, and was wiping the runny make-up off her face with a hankercheif, sniffling pitifully.

"Was all that fuss really necessary?" He finally asked, folding his arms across his chest.

"Shutup," she choked out. "Why her? And Glory be, if you HAD to, why couldn't you tell me like a man?"

"Oh Please. You know I would never touch her. Especially not when she's married, and has that daughter of hers following her everywhere. Give me some credit as a gentleman." He scoffed.

"I was right there. And you didn't even say anything. I give you no credit."

He ignored this, and forged ahead. "Meena has made herself obnoxiousy fond of me, these past few weeks. I admit, I'm becoming desperate for ways to get rid of her. She's interupting my classes, causing me to lose time for my works, and making the students gossip. And her daughter is trying my patience." He paused, looking at his hands. "As for why I didn't speak to you earlier, I will say that I don't have an excuse. I was waiting for the right time, I suppose. There is so much I would have to tell you, and explain-" he was floundering, but she cut him off.

"Things YOU have to explain? I'm the one who ran off to America, got married and all but cut myself off from the magical world. When I heard you were here I was terrified!" Appian jumped into her lap, and she began stroking him absently.

"Maya, may I ask," he stopped. Saying her name felt almost foreign on his tongue. "Is that ... Is that Appian?"

Maya nodded, looking up at him uncomfortably.

"How in the name of Merlin has that dog lived so long?"

"How is Snuffles still alive?" she bit back.

Snape snorted loudly. "'Snuffles', as you call him, is actually Sirius Black in anamagus form."

Maya looked up in surprise. "Snuffles? Is Sirius Black?" She laughed. "Oh dear god! The number of times I let that dog lick my face!" She put her head in her hands and moaned in embarassment. "Well, Appian is not anyone in anamagus form, sadly. Nothing so interesting." She motioned for him to sit. "After I went to California, I got married. His name was Trevor Wraid. We were both quite young, but I was in love with him, of course." She rolled her eyes. "I had met him through Meena. They were friends from law school."

"So he was English," He added. Maya nodded.

"We were married about a year," she said with contempt. "And then he had an affair."

"With Meena," he said with dawning understanding.

"How right you are. And how wrong I was." She shook her head. "Seems she had been sweet on him before he met me. I messed up her plans again, albeit unknowingly. She has never stopped tryingto get even."

Snape got an amused and sick feeling in his stomach. "And the dog?" he asked, cringing.

Maya held up Appian in embarrassment. "Meet Trevor," she said with an uncomfortable giggle.

"You turned you wayward husband into a dog?"

"NO. Sort of." She hemmed and hawed a bit. "I kindof cast this spell that took his life energy and put it in Appian. So really, it's still Appian, he just has lived a really long time."

"You killed your husband."

"No, no no. Killed is a bad word. I just gave his life a new form."

Snape sat, dumbfounded. "No one ever found out?"

"Once I told his dad that he had slept with Meena, everyone just assumed he had left me."

She paused, looking slightly guilty. "Trevor Wraid senior died about five years later, so really, you know. No one misses him."

"And I thought I was going to have the stranger story." He shook his head.

"Severus, you don't have to tell me anything." She stood up, tossing Appian down to sniff the corners of the room. She walked up to him. "Can we start over? I really am so very pleased to see you."

"I return the sentiment, Maya. Believe me." His voice was grave, but his eyes were relieved. He looked up to meet her yellow eyes. They looked for a moment, and then Maya reached up and took him in a gentle embrace. He took her in his arms, and buried his face in the blonde hair that spilled over her shoulders. He smiled a bit: she still smelled like Vanilla.

Sooo? What do y'all think?

-Popess2


	17. Chapter 17

If I did own it, I wouldn't need a roomate in order to pay my rent. But, I live in Oakland in a tiny apartment, so clearly, I DON'T own it. JKR owns it, and she lives in a big house in Europe someplace. Some people have all the luck. (Talent ... whatever.)

FLASHBACK:

The day that everyone had waited for had arrived. The final Quidditch match of the season. Slytherin was behind, thanks in great part to the jinxed broom mishap of the first game, by sixty points. The two teams stood on the pitch facing one another before taking to flight: It was Meena, Maya and the Slytherins versus James Potter and the Gryffindors. Practically the whole school had turned out for this one.

Maya looked across the pitch at her rivals. James winked at her before jumping on his broom and whooshing up to the sky.

"Just like you, to associate yourself with the likes of him," cooed Meena from behind her. "Who are his parents?"

"How should I know?" Maya glared back.

"Exactly." Meena answered haughtily. Luscious Malfoy, who stood behind her, sniggered rudely. Maya simply seethed, and kicked off to defend her hoops.

The game began, and Maya's anger had her in top form. Nothing could get past her. She managed to stop six quaffles before what Hogwarts alumni refer to as 'the Quidditch cup disaster of '76' came to complete fruition.

The snitch was whizzing about in typical fashion, and Meena was struggling to keep up with the more-talented James. Her flying wasn't nearly so clean or inventive. She had grown angry, andwas getting increasinglyerradic. Finally, in desperation, she turned, flew up to a gryffindor beater, shoved him over, grabbed his bat, and hit one extremely well-aimed shot directly at James. It hit him in the back just as he was about to grab the snitch, causing him to almost fall completely off his broom. The snitch whizzed away, and Meena and Lucious sat laughing hysterically on their brooms. Maya caught Meena's eye and gave her a look of clear disgust. Meena flew up to her and yelled,

"Don't tell me you've fallen for that mudblood. I refuse to sleep with HIM." She laughed. "Why can't you get a crush on Sirius Black? Start dating him, and it would only be a matter of time before I'd steal him from you."

Maya had nearly forgotten about the game she was playing. She was absolutely agast by her sister's behavior. She nearly choked at her next statement.

"Thank GOD Severus has it so bad for you that he ignored me - I think it would have made me SICK to fuck that greasy git." She smiled and flew off.

Maya seethed. She could not have been more angry at her sister if she had thrown her off her own broom.

"Accio wand!" She yelled, abandoning her hoops and speeding after Meena. Her wand flew from the stands in Severus's robes into her waiting hand. Severus, surprised that she had hidden her wand in his robes, picked up his own wand, only guessing what she would do to Meena. He watched her closely and trained his wand on her as secretively as possible. He saw her turn, point her wand, and look at Meena in the eye, who looked quite scared in spite of herself and start to say the word,

"Secta-"

Oh Gods, he thought. 'Levicorpus!' he thought as hard as he could, straining at Maya. All of the sudden, mid-hex, Maya flew off her broom, dangling in mid-air, as if she was being held up by her feet. She dropped her wand, and Severus managed to levitate it out of her eyesight. He undid the spell as soon as he was sure Meena was well out of her jinx range. Maya fell, but managed to catch on to her broom before hitting the ground and make a safe landing. Severus looked up, and saw Meena and Lucious laughing hysterically. Little did they know, he thought bitterly, she had almost cursed her almost to death. He watched them in disgust, pointed his wand, and used his top-heavy spell on both of them. Meena immediately tipped over, hanging like a monkey to her broom. Lucious fell completely off his broom, hitting the ground hard. The crowd was horrified at this point, not being able to tell who was at fault for jinxing who. Then there was a cheer, and one by one, the crowd went crazy. James Potter had caught the snitch with, as everyone found out later, two broken ribs from the bludger he had taken to the back.

Severus remained in the stands long after the rest of the crowd had left to celebrate or sulk, depending on where their loyalties lay. Maya was still 'debriefing' with the Headmaster - Severus suspected she was going to have detention for quite some time. When she finally came out, he stood to see if he could catch her eye. She saw him against the backdrop of the Slytherin stands, and lazily flew in wide circles up to meet him. She hovered just at his eye level.

"In trouble, are you?" he asked curtly.

"A bit," she smiled. He wondered how she could be so easy-going after the disaster of a few hours previous.

"You know it was me that ruined you hex then," he said uncomfortably. She smiled, and nodded.

"Thanks," she said. "I was angry - she really is a nasty person."

"Not nasty enough to get you expelled though," he raised an eyebrow. "Remember that."

"I'll try," she whispered. "Thanks for watching my back." Her lips quirked up. She nodded her head at the broom. "Get on."

"I do not ride brooms."

"Severus Snape, get on this broom instantly or I will never kiss you again."

"You haven't kissed me in months."

She leaned down at that moment and kissed him sweetly on the lips. When she ended the kiss, he looked at her with a raised brow.

"What was that for, might I ask?"

"For turning me on my head so I wouldn't sectasempra my idiotic sister. Now get on the damn broom!"

She grabbed him by the front of his robes, and helped to pull him on the rear of the stick. He grabbed her tightly around the waist and held on for his life as she took off at record speeds toward the horizon.

PRESENT:

It was Saturday morning, and the school was buzzing. It was the first Quidditch game of the season. Maya opened her eyes, and found herself laying on Severus's couch, a blanket draped lightly over her curled form. He was sitting by the fire, reading, and not paying any attention to her at all. Appian sat happily at his feet, munching on a dead something or other that he had found.

"Severus?" she looked at him.

"Good Morning." he answered, not looking up from him book. "Would you like some tea?"

"How long have I been asleep?" she asked him.

"You drifted off last night at around nine. By eleven, I gave up hopes that you would indeed be going home, and I covered you up so you wouldn't freeze to death."

"Hope that I would go home? You're so charming in the morning." She shook her head and stood.

"I assume you'll be going to the match today?" he asked over his tea.

"What match? Quidditch?" She asked, trying to pull her hair back into something slighlty less slept-on. Snape nodded.

"Hmm. I hadn't even thought about it. Harry playing?" She saw something akin to annoyance cross his eyes, but he nodded noncommitally. "Are you going?"

He shrugged.

"Well, I'll go if you'll accompany me." she said. And he simply couldn't turn her down.

Snape took a note from Maya's book that day, and held his head high above the crowd, even though every head (staff and student alike), turned to stare at him. He had offered his arm, and she had tried to refuse, insisting that he didn't have to be so formal with her. His snide return was that while she had moved to America to live among the uncultured swine, he still had a sense of etiquette,and would use it. She shrugged and took his arm, and they walked to the pitch.

They took a seat in the staff section to watch the game. Quite the thrilling match, she thought. Potter was an amazing seeker. Better than his father, she'd wager. They absolutely murdered Hufflepuff after he caught the snitch 43 minutes into the game. Snape had sneered, Maya had elbowed him and whispered for him to behave himself, and the staff had exchanged looks behind their back.Bludgers had swooped over their heads , and they had all ducked, and Snape had grabbed Maya around the shoulders. Maya had teased him about being over-protective, and the staff's eyes practically bulged out of their sockets.

When the game had ended, Athena, who had offered to be a guest referee for the game, flew up to them.

"Hello," she nodded. "Enjoy the game? Seems all I ever do is Quidditch." She smiled and shook her head, and set down lightly in the stands.

"Hey, Athena, do you mind if I borrow your broom for a tick?" Maya asked suddenly. Athena nodded, and handed it over.

"No worries. Give it back to me tonight. I'm off to set that Hufflepuff chaser's thumb." She tottered off to the locker rooms.

Maya hopped on the broom, and nodded to Snape. "Get on," she smiled wickedly.

"Maya, I didn't ride brooms when I was young, and I most certainly do not ride them now." But he felt the sides of his mouth twitch up.

"Severus Snape," she said in a low, almost seductive voice, "get on this broom instantly, or I will never kiss you again." She smiled widely.

Snape swallowed, looked up at her and answered sadly, "You haven't kissed me in years."

Maya leaned down so they were nose to nose and whispered, "Remember this?"

"All too well, my friend."

She pressedhis lips in her own,light as a feather. She pulled back about an inch to look into his eyes.

"What was that for?" He asked in a low voice.

"I missed you." she said with a small smile.

He had no response. At least no verbal response. His body completely took over then, and hegrabbed her face, and pulled it into his own for a deep, desperate kiss. She let go of the broom and wound a hand into his hair. She managed to get herself free after a moment, and growled low in her throat,

"Get on the damn broom." Just as she had 25 years ago, she grabbed the front of his robes, and pulled. However, she hadn't taken gravity into account, and his larger stature caused her only to pull herself off the broom into his waiting arms. He held her gently.

"I think not," he sniffed. She giggled, and nestled herself into his chest.

Uh oh ... Things are going to start to get good ... Don't say I didn't warn you. Reviews please!


	18. Chapter 18

It ain't mine.

That night, Grimmauld place was practically empty. The children were all at school, Aurthur was another raid, Sirius was prowling about somewhere, and Lupin was reading quietly in the study. Molly was knitting in a chair near him.Athena had talked Aria into a game of cards, and althoughshe had vetoed exploding snap, and they had settled instead for something that resembled gin rummy. While no one looked up when Maya and Snape walked in through the front door, as soon as they had passed the doorway, all four of them looked up to give each other wide-eyed, gossipy looks.

"Did you hear?" Lupin whispered, "She went to confront him in the middle of class!"

"That's not the half of it," Athena looked over her reading glasses at him. "Meena was in the study when she got there. She was yelling about wanting You-Know-Who to kill them both! In front of the class!"

"I'm sure that was the most informative potions lessen those kids have had all year," mocked Aria.

"Oh Heavans!" Molly placed a hand over her chest as if to still her heart. "What do you suppose will happen?"

The other three shrugged.

"They were so strange in school," Lupin remarked. "Always so close, and yet, so far."

"It wasn't the right time," Molly clucked.

"Do you think maybe he'll be a bit nicer? She might rub off on him a bit." Lupin smiled hopefully.

"Or maybe he'll rub off on her," Athena frowned. "Wouldn't that be bad!" She giggled.

"Better than him rubbing ANYTHING up against Meena," Aria finished. They all agreed with THAT.

Severus followed Maya up the stairs to her room. She opened, the door, and stepped inside. She turned, and looked back at Severus who wasglaring distastefully at Appian, who was winding around her feet.

"Are you coming?" She asked. He stood in the hall, his arms folded over his chest.

"I will not step foot inside this room while your husband is watching me."

She looked exasperated. "We're divorced!"

Snape just raised an eyebrow. She shook her head.

"Fine, fine, fine." She tossed the dog out into the hall, dragged Snape in by his robes and slammed the door.

As soon as the door was closed, Snape pulled her tightly against him, and kissed her passionately. She returned the kiss with a low moan, and wrapped her arms around him tightly. He kissed her jaw and her neck, and whispered into her ear,

"How long has it been since I've kissed you like this?"

"Too long," she breathed. "How long has it been since we've made love?"

Her breathy tone drove him crazy. He took her earlobe between his teeth. "Too long," he growled, and they backtracked blindly toward her bed, kissing wildly, dropping robes as they went. They toppled onto the bed, and Snape pulled Maya on top of him. She straddled him, and looked down into his face.

"Maya," he began slowly. She leaned down to be close to his face. "I missed you too." He said it softly. She smiled genuinely, leaned down, and kissed him gently. She laid on his chest, and he rolled her underneath him. He recalled the last time they had done this - teenagers, clumsily touching and kissing. He was determined to make a better impression this time around. He was in his mid-thirties for Merlin's sake, he thought to himself. He was going to make passionate love to Maya and leave her breathless. Suddenly, amid his flurry of kisses and ego-boosting ambition, another thought struck him.

"You've gotten better at this," he growled into her neck. He felt her laugh beneath him.

"I wasn't aware I was ever that bad!" She pulled his head up to look at her. "I should think twenty odd years of experience should help." His heart sank. Of course. She had been married. She was beautiful. She lived in San Francisco, of all places. He had failed to take into account that she might still be above his level. He sighed into her chest as she wrapped a leg around his pelvis and slid her hands up over his naked back.

"Maya, I-" he began, but she silenced him by taking his lower lip in her mouth. When she broke the kiss, she spoke low, with a twinkle in her eye.

"Severus - I think about you all the time. I miss you every day." She began to kiss him again with a fervor that made it hard for him to resist. "Mmm," she began to talk between kisses. "I always loved kissing you...you ... Oh God ... it was always so amazing."

"How is it now?" he couldn't help but ask. When she could only moan in response, his courage shot through the roof, and he grabbed her with a new ferovor. The last lucid thing he managed to do was to shoot a silencing spell through the room with his wand.

Ron, Harry and Hermione walked into 12 Grimmauld place later the same evening. There didn't seem to be anyone about. Ron had called out earlier, but he was only shushed by the portraits on the wall who were angry to be woken from sleep.

"Do you suppose we should wake up Sirius?" Hermione began. "I mean, there is no way Snape would miss a detention. Unless something was really wrong."

"Who cares?" Ron muttered. I didn't have to sit there with him for two hours on a Saturday night. I don't see why this is so upsetting to you."

"Ronald," she answered more quietly, after being ushed rather loudly by the picture of Sirius's great uncle. "Snape has been missing since this afternoon. Voldemort may have called him for a death eater meeting. If that's the case, we ALL might be in trouble."

"Hey look! Isn't that Maya's dog?" Harry interupted, shining his wand towards the dining room. Indeed, Appian was curled up next to the fireplace which still emitted a bit of heat from the dying embers.

"I wonder what he's doing down here? He's always with Maya." Ron went over and scooped him up. "Let's take him upstairs." The three of them walked up the stairs to Maya's room. Ron knocked quietly. There was no answer, so Ron shrugged, and tried to open the door, only to find it was locked tight.

"Alohamora!" he whispered loudly.

"Ron! You can't break into Maya's room!" Hermoine protested.

"I'm not!" He whispered back. He leaned his head in slightly and gasped slightly. He brought his head back out, and looked at his companions with big, mischievious eyes. "There's someone in bed with Maya!"

"Ronald! This iscompletely inappropriate," Hermione stated, staunchly crossing her arms. Harry looked at Ron with interest. "Harry! No! This is ridiculous!" She turned and stalked off.

Ron smiled in spite of himself. "Harry! Where's your cloak?"

Five minutes later Ron and Harry stood outside Maya's door underneath Harry's cloak, Appian still in Ron's arms. Harry opened the door slowly, and the two of them stepped into the room. Suddenly, Appian yapped loudly, jumped out of Ron's arms,bounded onto the bed, and curled up at Maya's feet. The two boys held their breath.

Maya gasped loudly and sat up out of her sleep. "Unh!"

"Mmmph," came the voice from the sleeping form next to her.

"Hey!" She poked him. Harry and Ron held their breaths. "Appian is back."

"Wonderful," the voice mumbled.

"How did he get in here?" She looked around in fear, and noticed the open door.

The figure rolled over in bed, and sat up slightly. Harry and Ron gaped silently. They were too astounded to even look at each other.

Their snarky potions master looked at the dog in distaste, and then looked around the room squinting slightly. He seemed to look right at Harry and Ron under the cloak, and lifted an intimidating eyebrow. He stared for a moment, and then rolled back over, but his voice was clear.

"It is probably just Potter and Weasley under that damnable invisability cloak."

Maya pulled the covers around her more closely. "Why are they in here?" she whispered.

"Don't worry. They know that if it is indeed them under the cloak, and if they don't leave in exactlyfive seconds, they will be turned into ingrediants to be used in Lupin's next wolfsbane potion." He reached out and fingered his wand menacingly. Harry and Ron didn't wait for another threat: they ran out of the room assilently as they could. Snape waited exactly five seconds, shot a transfiguration right at where the two had been standing. When the magic didn't hit anything, he was satisfied, and shut the door with his wand, locking it again. He rolled, and looked up at Maya. He wasn't expecting her to be looking at him in extreme interest. "What?" He asked.

"WOLFSBANE? Lupin is a werewolf? I thought he had a woman in another country!"

"Oh for God's sake!" he threw up his hands, and went back to sleep.

There you go. Hehe. More soon.

Popess2


	19. Chapter 19

Okay, so these are some filler chapters before we get back to the actual plot. You know how it is.

R/R

FLASHBACK:

"Mr. Snape? Where is Miss Howe this afternoon? Is she ill?" The astronomy professor, Professor Geneva Bourough, was looking as Severus through her large, droopy brown eyes. The seat next to him, where Maya always sat, was noticeably empty. Severus looked over at thespace in disgust, and then back to Proffesor Bourough.

"I'm sure that wherever she is, she has a good reason for her absence," he replied curtly. He had no desire to continue the conversation with the willowy astronomer. She frowned, and continued down her roll sheet.

"Lupin? Remus Lupin?" She looked up to chair next to Lily Evans.

"He's feeling a bit ill today," Lily answered politely. "I'll take his work to him." She smiled confidently, and Professor Bourough nodded.

"Well, it's a shame they aren't here. I suppose they'll just have to get their project assignment from me when they return." She ignored the general moaning that came from the teenagers upon hearing the words 'project assignments'.

Later that evening, Maya sat in front of the fireplace reading a book about theater and film that she had permanently borrowed from a muggle library. She looked up when she heard the door slam, and put a marker in her book when she noticed it was Sev.

"And where were you today, Miss Howe?"

"Eh – I needed a day off," she stretched, and wiggled her toes. He raised his eyebrows. "Alright, I confess," she put her hands in the air as if she had been caught red-handed. "I took a portkey to Dublin!"

"You missed class to make your presencenoticed among theIrish Quidditch team?" Severus was appalled. It was the beginning of their sixth year, and he had noticed with some disdain that Maya kept insisting on taking 'days off' here and there to shop, visit her sisters, or just sleep. Even more discouraging was the fact that due to Athena's recent graduation from her apprenticeship as a healer, she had become an intern for the med squad for the Irish Quidditch team, and Maya seemed to portkey off to Ireland for 'lunch' at least every other week. "Well," he continued. "You won't be happy to receive your project assignment from Proffessor Bourough."

"UGH. Why? What do we have to do now?" She closed her eyes in annoyance. "Another one of her group projects, I suppose. Who do we have to drag around this time?"

"You've done yourself in on this one. You and Lupin were the only two absent. You'll be dragging him around for this one."

"What? Why didn't you say you'd be my partner?"

"And have you gone to Ireland on the day of our presentation? I think not," He huffed, and she snorted.

"Ah, well. Lupin isn't that bad. Smart too. Our project will be good. O in Astronomy, here I come!" she giggled, and began flipping through her book again. "Too bad he's always sick – whatever he's got, I hope he doesn't give it to me!" She continued to flip pages, and then looked up at Severus with great interest. "Wait a tick – there's something you aren't telling me. If Lupin and I were the only two gone, who did you get partnered up with?" She squinted at him. "Who is Lupin's usual partner? It wouldn't be James. You would never put up with that. Peter?"

"If you ever made an appearance, you would know that Pettigrew is not in our class. I believehe chose to take divination." Snape looked at his companion with a satisfied, smug expression, which made Maya question him more thoughoughly.

"SIRIUS?" She threw her book down. "I KNOW you aren't partners with Sirius."

"I do believe Black and Potter will form their usualarrangement for a sub-par performance."

"Well who's left?" She raised an eyebrow, and then a slow smile started to creep across her face. "Lily Evans. Your partner is Lily Evans! Aw, Sev, it's like a dream come true!" She giggled, and poked him playfully in the arm. "You fancy her. I know you do."

"Lily is a charming girl of good breeding and a great number of talents."

"Good breeding … what? Pshaw." She rolled her eyes. "Not that it makes any difference to ME, of course, but her family is about as magical as this book!"

"So now you're a posterchild for pureblood families?" he sneered at her, slightly irate at her jab in his – no, in LILY'S – direction. "It seems to me that if you are so uninterested in mudbloods you would spend more time with your lovely sister."

"My lovely sister?" She raised a dangerous eyebrow at him. "Hey, if I had a PROBLEM, as you put it, with 'mudbloods' as you call them, I wouldn't be hanging out with YOU. I can think of a few members of your family who wouldn't know a wand from a corncob pipe." She slumped back into her chair, disliking the soapbox he was standing on in Lily's defence immensely. She liked Lily just as much as anyone. She was a sweet girl who, although abit bland for Maya's taste anda little too eager to please, gave no one any real reason todislike her. And she had always been very nice to Severus, giving stern looks to theMarauders whenever one of them tried to poke fun at him. For that, she wason the 'acceptable' list in Maya's head.

Severus folded his arms coldly across his chest. "I can think of a time when YOU couldn't tell a wand from a corncob pipe." He stared her down, trying very hard to be intimidating. She simply scoffed, and gave him a nasty look.

"Well then, thank goodness you have Lily as a partner instead of me." She shook her head, and buried her nose in her book, slouching deep into the chair. When he failed to reply, she bit her lip, and then shot him a look. "If yourfather ever needs any tobacco for his corncob pipe, I know a muggle in Yorkshire who can give him a good deal."

Severus stiffened, and his eyes narrowed slightly at his friend. "I will thank you not to bring up my father. And I will thank you not to speak about Lily in such a way."

"You're the one who's being sensitive. I like Lily. All I was saying was that it was lucky for you that you got to be partnered up with the girl you like." She sniffed dejectedly. "It must be a nice change. I'm sorry I hoarded you for all these years and kept you away from the love of your life."

"Woman! Why do insist on giving me a headache!" He pinched the brindge of his nose.

"Whatever, Sev. I'm going to bed." She stood and left the common room shaking her head. He glared after he. The older they got, the more difficult it was for them to get along. It was always something, and he didn't understand the female sex well enough to have any idea what was going on inside her head. Could she be jealous? What did she have to be jealous about? Lily belonged to the Marauders. As much as she yelled and scolded them for terrorizing Severus, everyone knew that in a matter of years she would undoubtablybe Lily Black, Lily Lupin, Lily Potter, or, God forbid, Lily Pettigrew. Sure, he liked her. Everyone liked her. She was a pretty young girl. Quiet, a little shy, studious, with long brown hair and a warm, kind face. She was different from Maya: Maya was edgy and biting; Lily was kind and demure. Maya was striking and blonde with a sinful body; Lily was soft and compelling, with rolling features and an inviting smile. Maya was crafty and sharp; Lily was honest and brave. He looked around at the empty room, shrugged angrily, and stalked upstairs to his bed.

Maya flopped onto her bed. She was angry, but she couldn't really tell why. Why the hell was her friend so touchy about Lily Evans? Sure, she was nice, but she was still just an uninteresting stick of a girl. Why did Sev like her so much?

"What's with him?" she snuggled with Appian. "I'm prettier than she is. And I have so much more …. I dunno. Something. Pizazz. Savoir-faire. I'm a SLYTHERIN for goodness sake! My father is Satinum Howe! My mother is a Von Tost! I have a line of Dark Wizards AND a best-selling novelist in my direct ancestral line. and I more than live up totheir standards! UGH! How could he possibly be more intersted in her than in ME?" She ruffled up the little dog who pounced happily in her arms.

"You're just mad that he's not falling all overhimself for you anymore," came a voice from the hall.

"What?" Maya called back.

Jen and Heather appeared in her doorway. "Are you actually jealous of Lily Evans?" Jen asked with a smirk. "Did Severus finally decide to stop letting you jerk him around?" She giggled, and entered the room. Heather follwed her, and flopped on the bed near her.

"I do not jerk Severus around, and I have no reason to be jealous of Lily." Maya scrunched up her nose.

"MAYA." Heather practically threw her head into hands. "Severus would do anything you asked him. He's worse than that DOG."

"You know that he likes you, right?" Jen asked, trying to be a little more helpful.

"Well … " Maya gave a half smile. "I kinda get that impression sometimes. Like, when he kisses me I can tell-"

"What!" Jen and Heather screeched together. Jen jumped up and slammed the door. She turned around and leaned into her friends. "You KISSED him?"

"Well … yeah. After the ball." She looked at her friends. They shared a look as they noticed her smile.

"So, you like him, he likes you … you guys seem to have a comfortable physical intimacy …" Heather looked at Maya. "What's the problem?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why aren't you guys together? I mean, don't get me wrong, he's not my type … but I think you guys are good for each other." Heather folded her arms across her chest.

"Oh Maya," Jen sighed. "You could do so much better! I mean, he's not BAD looking, but he's not as good looking as say … Sirius Black."

"Sirius Black is an asshole." Maya rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I can't help it! I like Sev."

"No, you just like the attention." Heather accused. "You like the fact that he basically does anything you want."

"Not true," Maya tried, but Jen and Heather's looks made something inside her stop and think. Did she like Sev? Or did she just like his devotion to her? She thought back to he ball, when she had wanted a chaste kiss, andhow ithad ended in a passionate embrace. She thought of Lily Evans, and immediately felt anger rise in her cheeks. "Oh, Merlin. You're right! Oh no …" Maya shook her head.

"Who cares? It's not like Lily can really compete with YOU," Jen said, looking at her nails carefully. "If you want him, just go get him." She stood, and grabbed Heather. "Come on then. Let's go. I don't want to watch them try to keep their hands off each other." She shuddered comically. Maya rolled her eyes, and curled up with Appian. She spent most of the night awake, contemplating her feelings for her friend. Finally, close to 2 am, she fell into sleep.

PRESENT:

Severus awoke in a strange room in a strange bed with a strange hot sensation seeping over his chest. He looked down and saw Maya lying across his body, still asleep. He didn't want to wake her – and he didn't really know how to feel. He hadn't made love to anyone in a very long time, especially not anyone quite like Maya.

When she stirred, he leaned his head down to rest on hers. She lolled her head about slowly to look up and meet Snape's eyes. She smiled shyly and reached her arms around his chest in a comfortable embrace.

"Maya, what are we doing?" Snape asked, wondering where this liason was taking them.

She sighed. She had known this would come up. He never was able to just enjoy himself. There always had to be strings attached. Then again, she decided, he meant more to her than some of the men she had dated. He deserved to be more than just a good time. And really, she couldn't lie to herself anymore. She had loved him then, and there was definitealy the potential of loving him now. Oh, what a mess she had gotten into. But nevertheless, she answered as best she could.

"Good morning to you too," she retorted. She snuggled into him. "We aren't doing anything. We are enjoying each other's company."

"Maya, I'm different than I used to be."

"I'm not asking you to be the same. I'm not asking you to be anything. I'm just as confused as you are because I was bound and determined to live the rest of my life as a fun-loving, single, British Rock-opera-ist in California."

"You can still do that," he muttered. "I'm not so easy to hook as you apparently think."

Maya laughed. "Oh Sev. I don't think we could actually have a normal, adult relationship if we tried. Believe me, as much as you have changed, I have yo-yo-ed back and forth between 3 or 4 completely different lives. I do believe we would drive each other crazy," she pulled her hair behind her ears, looking more erotic than Snape could ever remember seeing any woman look. "It is nice to pine for someone though, don't you think? In a masochistic sort of way," she grinned at him.

He smirked back at her. "You pine for me, do you Mrs. Wraid?"

She smacked him on the chest. "Don't CALL me that! And no, I don't pine away for you. But I missed you very much."

He brought his mouth down to her ear. "I missed you too, Maya. As unfortunate as are the circumstances, I can say quite honestly that I am glad for this opportunity."

"Just to get me back in bed with you after twenty years," scoffed Maya.

"Adelicious bi-product of having the opportunity to see you again, yes. But really, just seeing you is enough." He was whispering into her ear now, and she closed her eyes in bliss. The voices in her head were telling her not to fall in love: he was a death eater and a spy, and an important part of the army that was about to go to war. With a sharp pang of fear, she realized that it could be a very short time before he was killed. In his head, similar thoughts were bumping around like atoms in a container: don't fall in love with Maya. Love is a luxury you can't afford.

"Okay," she sat up abruptly. "I'm going to lay this all out on the line."

Snape folded his arms over his chest, and looked into Maya's eyes. Her hair was a mess, and she had wrapped the sheets around her upper body. She leaned in towards his face as she spoke, a position that wasunconsciously erotic.

"Severus, I don't know what happened last night. A moment of passion? Twenty years of pent up wanting and everything, you know." She sighed. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I think the world of you." She smiled encouragingly.

He set his eyes in a steeley gaze. "You think the world of me?" he repeated with venom.

"Sev, I'm just trying to make this easy for you. If you don't want it, I'm not going to force it. You have your life, and I have mine, and the two just happened to coincide for one night."

"If I don't want what?" he asked slowly.

She sighed. "Sev, I live in San Francisco. I have a whole other world of existence that, well, you couldn't even imagine. It wouldn't be fair to you. And, honestly, it wouldn't be fair to me. You're in the middle of a war, for Christ's sake!"

"A war you ran away from twenty years ago. Running away again, are we, Miss Howe?"

"I didn't run away! It wasn't my war to fight."

"Of course not. The little California girl, running off to the land of sun and surf. Nothing to be concerned withexcept whether or not people enjoy your _rock opera_. What was it called? Sounds of the fight? What have you ever had to fight for in your life?" He was sneering at her, and he hadn't noticed that he had grabbed her shoulder hard. Her face was crumbling, and she bit her lip in anger.

"I left because YOU left!" she exploded, wrenching her arm away from him. "You got weird. Weird and SCARY. I LOVED you, Severus. I loved you so much. It was HELL for me to leave." She turned her body so she didn't have to face him. "I'm not a fool, Severus. When I figured out what was going on with you, I got the hell out of England. I wasn't going to watch you be a death eater. I wasn't going to see you die. And NO, I wasn't going to be a target because I knew you. Come ON, Severus. Even Meena wasn't stupid enough to become a death eater. As nasty as she is, the war is over, and she still has dignity." Her words were biting cold. She was almost afraid to look over at Severus until she heard a choked sound that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

"Maya, please. Save me from your childish diatribes." He whipped the blankets off of himself, and stood to dress. "But next time we happen to fall into each other's paths, if you plan to read you 'dear john' letter to me out loud the next morning, please have the decency to simply refrain from intimacy the night before."

She was silent for a moment, much to his angry relief, but then she turned, one last time, as, really, he knew she would, and continued. "Severus? Did you ever love me? Back in school? Before our adult lives and everything they entailed got in the way?" She was calmer, with almost a hint of a wistful smile on her face.

He took a breath. "Yes, Maya, I believe I did."

She stood slowly, her sheets draping over her disheveled morning figure like a shroud. She walked over to him slowly, and lay her head on his chest. Stiffly, he placed one hand around her form, and another in her hair. "I loved you, too, Severus. But I was seventeen. Don't blame me for being a scared little girl."

He picked up her chin and lifted he head so their eyes met. Her eyes were sparkling yellow, with tiny tears threatening to fall, though her jaw was defiant. She continued softly. "I forgave you for being scared a long, long time ago."

The tenderness in his own voice took even him by surprise. "Yes, we always did have different ways of dealing with problems," he smirked at her, but not an unkind smirk. "You ran to California, where the world has never heard of Voldemort, and the magic and non-magic community live together in relative peace, and understanding of each other, and I ran to join said dark Lord, effectively ruining myself for the rest of my life. I'm untrustworthy, a turncoat, and according to some, a danger to society."

She giggled in spite of her verging tears. "I don't care," she said. "I don't care." She nestled herself into his chest.

"Yes, you do," he whispered, almost inaudible. But she heard him, none the less.

"No, Sev, I don't. The only reason I brought this whole thing up to begin with had nothing to do with your status as a death eater. Or your 'whatever else you've got going on' that I don't know about. It had to do completely with the fact that I live there," she pointed off with one naked arm, "and you live in THIS mess. I mean, once we deal with this Aria disaster, we may not see each other again for twenty years, or even LONGER if you stupidly get yourself KILLED during this war." She looked up at him with something that looked like wild fear that she had calmed behind practiced eyes. "Plus, the last thing I need is to be on Voldemort's radar as the potential lover of his death eater. Torture for the truth about your loyalties would not be my first choice for vacation plans in Europe." She added curtly.

"You were always so selfless," he countered sarcastically, before pulling her tightly into a kiss. He grabbed her hair as his lips moved over hers, and she grabbed blindly around his torso. He kissed hungrily up and down her jaw, and she moaned into him slightly. He grabbed her, and picked her up enough to move her back across the room to the bed, where he grasped her tightly, and kissed her passionately. "Everything has a way of working itself out," he growled through her hair. "I'm sure our situation will be no different."

"For better or for worse," she sighed as he kissed her neck. "For now, I'm yours." And she gave herself to him again, for at least another day.


	20. Chapter 20

Okay, here we go. This stuff is actual plot, I think. Not that the other stuff wasn't, but you know what I mean.

PS - I don't own it. Well, some of it I own. But most of it ... no.

READ AND REVIEW!

Later that afternoon, May walked through the halls of Hogwartz to the dungeons, where she had promised to meet Snape for a brief overview of the collection of jewelry she had in tow. She had, earlier that morning, gotten eall the pieces that both Aria and Athena could find, and had curtly asked Meena to locate anything that might be helpful. Meena had squinted, opened her mouth, butMaya had walked importantly out of the room before she could respond.

"Good afternoon," Snape had said upon her entrance.

"Hello, Sev. Here's almost everything." She clumsily heaved the threeboxes onto his desk, much to his dismay. "All I have left to get is Meena's portion." She scowled loudly as Snape pointed lazily at the foot of his desk.

"Meena has already been so kind," he muttered with dark humor. He noticed with a bit of satisfaction that annoyance crossed Maya's eyes, but it left after a loud sigh.

"Good. I'm just not going to let her ruin my day. I'm glad she was so prompt." Maya looked Snape up and down, and snorted a bit. "Why are you still wearing full robes? It's 85 degrees outside!"

"It most certainly is NOT 85 degrees. If it were, we would have boiled to death long ago." He raised a practiced eyebrow. "And in response to why I wear robes: I wear them becasue it is the preferred clothing of the wizarding world.It might suit you to do the same around this school. The students are accustomed to it."

"85 degrees Fahrenheit. And it's more of an expression than an actual approximation of temperature. Mostly I was just trying to say that I was hot. Which is why I'm not wearing robes. Also, it's the weekend. Are you always this boring?" She smiled a bit, and poked him in the arm playfully. "Either way, shall we get down to business?"

"Let's do." He agreed dryly.

Without response, Maya opened her first box. "This is my share of the booty, as it were. I have these five neckpieces, three brooches, a ring, and two sets of earrings. I'm sure you've seen most of these," she began, as she moved them all slowly onto his desk. Indeed, he recognized quite a few of them from his memory orb. "The earrings are here," she handed them to him, and he looked at them with little interest. "Diamond earrings. I wear these all the time. They're pretty normal looking anyway. And fairly harmless." She looked up at him and winked. "It protects against pestilence."

"Indeed," he almost grinned. "Isn't the diamond one of the stones of the Gryffendor House?"

She grinned back. "Yeah. Good for them, right? Of course, if the school ever gets overrun by locusts or the like, we'll all be eating our words," she added wryly.

"It must represent something else. Something having to do with the insufferable need to spread goodness everywhere."

"You've been teaching too long, you know? I remember a time when you refused to know anything about the other houses."

"You remember too much, I think," he sniffed tartly.

"Well, you're right, none the less. It's also a symbol for bravery, strength and innocence. No wonder they never had as much fun as we did."

"As much fun as YOU did at any rate."

"Hey!" she looked at him laughingly, then rolled her eyes in agreement. "Basically, these earrings, even if I did choose to use them, couldn't really do much for me." She gave him a leer. "After nights like last night, I don't even know that I could put them in my ears without some adverse reaction. Like a vampire trying to walk into a church."

"Vampires can't walk into churches?" he asked, not following her metaphor.

"I don't think so. Can they?" She paused.

"Maya, I don't know what you're talking about. I suggest you stop trying to be creative, and please remain on topic." He spoke sternly, but there was a hidden joviality in his comment that she heard loud and clear. He realized now why he had missed her so much. She was intelligent enough to keep up with him, but her thoughts got away from her so frequently that she sounded, more often than not, like one of his confused students. It was mildly entertaining, in an easy sort of way.

"Fine. But I'm asking Lupin about that Vampire thing."

"He's a werewolf, not a vampire!"

"Fine. Then I'll ask Ron. He's a smart kid."

At that, Snape couldn't hold it in any longer. He choked, and buried his face in the sleeves of his robes so her could laugh in relative privacy.

"Wow," he heard her marvel. "I guess some of this jewelry is powerful. The 'loosen up' ring must be in here somewhere. It must be fire stone, or the diamond wouldn't have had such an effect." Snape looked up, and saw her smiling sweetly at him.

"What was that about a fire stone?" he asked, immediately back on topic, though feeling much more relaxed and amazingly revived.

"All business, are we? Well, I don't know a lot about it, but I know thatthe stones were all put into special categories. The diamonds are Air stones, or Wind stones. Some are fire stones, some are-"

"Water stones, earth stones, some are divine stones, or goddess stones." He immediately stood, and floated like a bat to one of his bookshelves. "Around the time that your dear Aunt Aunsten would have enchanted these stones, she, most likely would have been immersed in thereligion du jour. It's been mostly lost in the recent years with all the additions of muggle blood lines and their Judeo-Christianity." He found the book he was looking for, an ancient looking tome in bound leather. He swept the jewelry gently out of the way and opened the book on his desk to the correct page with his wand. Maya looked at the page he had opened to, but had no idea what she was looking at. Snape began to talk in a very authoritative and, thought Maya to herself with a small smile, professor-like tone. "Before all that, when the magic bloodlines were all more or less pure,"

"Like the Von Tosts," she added.

"Yes. Thank you for pointing out the relevance." They gave each other a look, and then went back to their reading. "At that time, the basic religious beliefs involved the natural world and its cycles rather than a human figure. The Goddess was the center, and the four cardinal directions associated with Fire, Water, Earth and Air. I'm not surprised that Madame Von Tost used spells based in these five categories. "

"If you're not surprised, why bring it up?"

"Because, as you said, this adds another layer to the problem. In all probability, thegems may have an effect on each other as well." He closed the book with a bang. "But enough of that. Tell me what the rest of it does." He sat down and steepled his fingers.

"Alright," Maya began with an overwhelmed sigh. "These other earrings are emerald." She was wearing them, and she pointed to her lobes. "It's a water stone. I wear these almost everyday, actually. I wore them almost all through school, as well, if you remember. Green, and all." She smiled. She pulled one out of her ear, and handed it to Snape, who eyed it closely.

"What effect was this one casting on me without my knowledge?" he growled.

"Uh," she cleared her throat in embarrassment. "It supposedly helps attract love."

"Considering your husband is a dog, I would wager a guess that you weren't wearing these on your wedding day?"

"I don't wear them for that reason, thank you." She ignored his jab. "It also promotes creativity. Which is helpful in my line of work. It stimulates perception and insight. And memory! Good for the eyes, among other things."

"Other things?"

"Dysentery. It's good against dysentery."

"Then let us hope the Dark Lord does not get a hold of these." He reached over, and gently slipped the earring back into her earlobe, caressing it gently. "Dysentery was our last line of defense. If he were to get past that, he would be more than able to take over the world and produce endless rock operas chalk full of dark magic."

She was caught between the physical response to his touch and the need to retort to his comment. Leaning into his palm won out, and for a moment they just looked at each other. When the moment had past, he brought his hand back to his lap, and asked gruffly,

"Alright then. Keep going."

"This ring," she sorted it off a necklace it had become attached to, "Is a topaz. Another Air stone. I've found that it really only works when I wear it on my left hand, for some odd reason. Could be just my own placebo effect, but who knows. It works like a good cup of coffee in the morning. It gives you a little extra energy, mentally and physically, and revitalizes the creative processes." Snape looked completely uninterested in this particular piece until her next comment. "Aunsten's sister pulled it off of her corpse! It's supposed to ease death. Lots of people in the family have worn it to die, and then someone **POP! **Pulls it off the finger and sends it on its way."

"Really," he murmured, glancing a little longer at it. Maya smirked.

"The rest of these all really do similar things. Let's see," she pointed to them as she rattled off their names. "Carnelian, Rhodonite, Jasper, Tiger eye, Herkimer, tourmaline, moon stone and turquoise." She stopped, and hovered over the turquoise for a moment before returning her attention to Snape. "Know anything about those?"

"Tourmaline is one of the Ravenclaw house stones," he stated. "And Herkimer is a Hufflepuff stone."

"Correct. The tourmaline is really powerful, actually. This would be one I think we might want to really focus on. I mean, the reason I think it's a Ravenclaw stone is it represents understanding and the ability to be more objective in purpose and reason, but in practice it's a damn good as a protective shield. It ... EATS, for lack of a better word, negative energy, and then just holds it in. I don't know how to release the energy it has stored in the past 700-odd years, or if it's even possible, but if it were, that might be problematic."

"Or useful," he added. She nodded slightly. "What about the hufflepuff stone?"

"Don't use it much. It works in direct opposition with the diamonds. It messes with dreams and the like."

He tilted his head, and picked up a necklace. "This one I remember," he murmured, looking at the rhodonite. "Another love stone, as I recall."

"Something like that."

"How about the tiger eye?

"Same thing as the topaz, except worthless for making death any easier," She shrugged. "Plus it's an earth stone, not an air stone."

"The carnelian?"

"The wish stone. Supposed to grant wishes. Grants good fortune is more like it. In very weak levels."

"Fanciful drivel. Dare I ask about the jasper?"

"I have no idea. Does nothing for me at all. Athena told me it was a 'damsel in distress' type necklace, that would help a maiden in trouble … even I think that's fanciful drivel. But honestly, for whatever reason, I get practically no magical reading from it at all."

"Your Aunt was a moron."

"First of all, she isn't my aunt. My Aunt lives in Bath next to a charming cafe that I frequent with my father. And secondly, not all of it is useless. The moonstone keeps you young, and helps get in touch with past lives."

"A spell for vanity. Excellent."

"Well, if you're so unimpressed, how about this one?" She held up the turquoise, almost right under his nose. "I know you remember this one."

"I do indeed," he said betraying no emotion.

"This one is one that I don't know what to do with. I mean, it's true that itheals thebody and neutralizes dark magic, but you can't use it unless you put it on, and you can't put it on without what's left over of Aunsten's soul, being, essence, whatever – sucking your life force and trying to take over your mind. I've only tried it once, and we both remember how THAT turned out." She pointed at her golden eyes sharply. "I don't intend on trying it again."

"But you're alive," he pointed out.

"That's true. I am alive." They looked at each other for a long moment after that.

"Well, Perhaps you could give me a quick overview of the more useful pieces in the collection?" he said uncomfortably.

"Sure," she agreed quickly. She dug through her sisters' boxes. "Starting with Athena … she has … Ooh! Okay, great." She emerged with a handful of jewelry. "Healing crystals. Excellent. I mean, a lot of other nonsense as well, but some good stuff, too. Sooo … we have amber and quartz, both really strong healing stones. Amber also really helps adds a … a boost, I guess you could call it, to all spells.Uh, these rings here, the pyrite and the hematite, are both really good at shielding negative energy … even absorbing it."

"Anything else?"

"Amethyst gives the wearer the gift of tongues," she raised her eyebrows. Snape yawned in boredom.

"So that's how your sister is such a talented healer. The Quidditch team thanks Dear Aunt Aunsten."

"I'm sorry this is boring you," she snorted as she dug into Aria's jewelry box. "Azurite, ruby, still more healing stones." She shrugged, and went into Meena's box. "Oh … here's something interesting," she looked up at Snape who was holding the bridge of his nose.

"Hm?"

"Meena has a malachite stone," she picked up a small pendant in her fingers and looked at it with a strange combination of sadness and intrigue. It hung on a long, delicate chain, and was shaped like a teardrop, about the size of her thumb.

"So? Look, Maya, I realize you are fascinated with all of this, but I'm getting to the point where I simply don't CARE."

"No, no, no," Maya silenced him almost rudely. "The malachite is a protective stone, protective for children. I know that these work, I … I don't understand. I mean, Meena is a Von Tost. Any child of hers is a Von Tost. And I KNOW she used this …"

"Well, I think that Leah turned out alright. As alright as could be for an annoying, miniature Meena."

"Yes, but Meena's son Illias died more than fifteen years ago… I know he was wearing the amulet, I saw it in pictures. I just never realized it was a malachite, because I never looked at it in person." She was still staring at the pendant with some emotion.

"I didn't know she had another child," Snape said slowly, and Maya nodded. "Well then, perhaps you are mistaken. How do you know it was this particualr piece that the child was wearing?"

"It's a very unique looking piece. I think I would recognize it." She put the piece down, and looked through Meena's box. There were assorted other objects other than the jewelry: a small locket, various trinkets, a thimble, and then, finally, a small memory orb, not unlike the one Snape had on his desk. Shesaid the word 'Illias' clearly, and Snape watched as the ball swirled slowly, and revealed a picture. "There. See?" Maya handed the orb to Snape. He looked through it, and, indeed, there was a small baby with the very piece of jewery tucked gently into the folds of his clothing. Maya began to explain, and he listened, never taking his eyes from the gurgling child in the orb.

"It was, well," she ran a hand through her hair shakily. "He was Appian's son. I mean, Trevor's son. I think. I don't really know. That is, of course, what we all assumed, and Meena never offered any other explanation, so ...basically, Trevor had an affair, Meena had a baby, said it was Trevor's, Trevor became a dog, and Illias was born." She pinched her face together, and tripped over her words slightly. She hadn't thought about this in years, especially now that Meena had achild, and some of the bitterness had worn off between the two. "I was so ANGRY, but I went to the birth anyway … the whole familywas a mess – they were happy about the baby, of course, but it was awkward between us. Meena was so proud. You know how she is. ButTrevor was gone, and we were both alone. And we HATED each other… we hated each other so much." She looked at Snape, who slowly lowered the orb and looked into his companion's troubled eyes. "I walked in…he was four days old. Idon't even remember what I said to her, but it was something horrible. Somethingimmature and angry that made the whole room either gasp or turn away. I think it even made my mother cry. And I walked out. She ran after me, holding him, but I was already gone. Sheapperatedto San Francisco after me, but I wasn't there. I had gone to the beach, or the dock … or maybe … somewhere else, I don't know. I don't remember. But when she apperated back, Illias was dead. I guess as an infant, he just couldn't handle two side-along apperations in a row." She sighed. "But I don't know why the malachite didn't work! I'm not imagining their power.You saw it work with the bloodstone! Right?" She was on the verge of tears. "What happened?"

"Maya, even if the stone did work, two side-along apperations is a lot for any new-born to take. Especially if, by some chance, that child was a squib. The reaction of all that magic to such a young body ... even if the malachite were amazingly powerful, it may not have saved him." Snape was uncomfortable with her emotional outburst. His logical comment did not seem to help her in any capacity, and she just shook her head more forcefully.

"I remember one spring when I was in my third year of primary school, we went for a short visit to the Italian vineyards. Meena, Athena and I were running around outside in the middle of the night. It was the very outskirts of the vineyard, near a forest. We were making a lot of noise, like kids do, and we disturbed a small group of wild thestrals."

"You could see them?"

"We had been at my grandmother's bedside the year earlier when she passed," she explained."But they ran out of the forest like huge, nasty ... BAT-Horses!"

Snape tried not to laugh at her discription of the creatures. It was a rather appropriate and Maya-esque expression, though simply not the right time to giggle given the gravity of the tale at hand.

"They ran, and we ran, and they missed Athena and me, but completely trampled Meena. I mean, just obliterated her. Imagine being trampled to death by six or seven huge night-beasts."

"But she survived, obviously."

"We ran to her, sure she was dead. Just POSITIVE she was dead. Getting run over by regular horses would've killed her, but thestrals? There's a bit of dark magic in those hooves. You know that as well as I do." She leaned back in her chair and finished the story with as much non-chalance as she could muster. "Anyway, she was a mess, but she was alive. She was holding something in her hand really tightly, and we watched, and slowly, everything on her began to heal. From her hand up her arm, and then to her face and chest. Pretty soon she was no worse for the wear. Still bruised and bashed, but she was able to stand up and walk away. When we returned later that night and told mum and dad, they were horrified, but Mum said it was because she was wearing the Aunsten's protective necklace. One that protects all the children in Aunsten's family from bad magic."

"I thought your mother didn't believe in the old family traditions?"

"Of course she did. Very much so. She knew how powerful the stuff is. She just didn't really hold fast to the rules of the will."

"Well, you don't know for sure that it was the same stone."

"What else could it have been?"

"You're jumping to conclusions that, all in all, have no real bearing on the problem at hand."

Maya sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry. I just don't understand." She stood. "Look, Sev, I'm going to have to get back to you on all this," she motioned messily at his desk. "I think I need to go see my Mum." She smiled sadly and pocketed the Malachite. Suddenly, she perked up a bit. "Would you like to come?"

"Certainly not. I have school to teach."

"We'll go right now. We'll be back in a few hours." She walked around his desk and reached her arms around his neck, pressing her face against his neck. "Come, on, Sev. It'll be good for you." SHe whispered in his ear.

"Where?" he asked simply.

"I'll show you," and she grabbed his hand, laced her fingers through his, and lead him out of the dungeons.

Okay all. This one was tedious to write. But necissary to the plot, you know. Ugh. That's okay, moreFUN stuff to come. Please review. Tell me what you think. Let me know. Drop me a line. A holler. A note. Anything. I appreciate it.

-Popess2


	21. Chapter 21

FLASHBACK:

Maya scowled across the room where Severus and Lily sat together, cute as could be, talking quietly over an astronomy book. Lupin sat next to Maya, sleeping on her astronomy book, looking weak and pale. He had justreturned from his latest bout of sickness, and was trying unsuccessfullyto keep his head up. He was lolling in and out of naps, and Maya was simply too furious to work. She had been trying as up late tomake herself more available to Severus, but he was taking complete advantage of this opportunity to be with Lily. 'He's doing it on purpose,' she glowered angrily. 'That pig.' She shook herself out of her angrythoughts, and looked at Lupin who had just nodded off onto her arm.

"Remus!" She poked him awake. "Wake up, mate. Keep it together."

He jolted awake, and looked at Maya with a bit of confusion for a moment. Then realization of their whereabouts connected, and he moaned quietly. "I hate astronomy," he began.

"I didn't think you hated any subject." She said distractedly.

"I certainly hate astronomy." He groused quietly about the changing phases of the moon or something equally inane. She was too busy flaring her nostrils at Lily to notice. "Oh, Maya," he interrupted. "Stop it. It's so ridiculous for you to be jealous of her. She'll end up withJames … everyone knows that." He shook his head. "Although," he guffawed tiredly. "You should see the snit he's in about Lily being with Severus. … twice as bad as how you're acting! He tries to be cavallier about it, of course, but it's all just a sad charade. But, then again,you'regot a leg up on him in the dignity department to begin with, so, I guess it's even."

"I am not jealous. I just don't get it!" She corrected herself quickly. "I mean, she's a nice girl, and all, you know. But still!"

"I understand perfectly. But let me assure you, for what it's worth, you and Lily just cannot compete with each other. You're not even in the samecategory of girl."

"Huh?" he looked at him blankly.

"Well, Lily has you beat in good, honest work ethic and wholesome womanhood. She had just about everyone beaten there." He paused. "But, really, no one has had more fights with Professor Carnickle than you have. And no one irritates Peeves more than you. And no one, save for James, Sirius, Peter and I, have snuck off campus as much as you have."

"I'm glad I have many admirable qualities," she snapped sarcastically, then sighed and rolled her eyes, poking her book with her quill. "It's not as though any of that helps me."

"For someone like James, no, not really. He thinks you're a great athlete, but he would never DATE you. You're far tooirrational and high-maintenencefor him. He needs a woman he can protect, like Lily."

"Yeah, well, what does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm simply drawing a comparison: Severus would go crazy if Lily were to actually run off with him. He needs someone who can keep pace with him. Challenge him. As far as I know, you drive him to distraction, and beyond. I think, secretly, he's very attracted to that."

"That's a backhanded compliment if I ever heard one." She said wryly.

"Severus just likes to finally have someone who is nice to him with no strings attached."

"I'm nice to him with no strings attached! He's my best friend!" she sputtered.

"There are strings attached, Maya, and they are all attached to his rather pitiful amount of dignity and self-esteem. He's terrified of you. He always has been."

Maya sighed. "Well, bollocks," she threw her quill down. She wrinkled her nose, and looked over at her companion. "Let's go. I'm tired of being here. I want a good hot bowl of soup and a butterbeer. Yes, that will be perfect," she threw her books and quills back into her bag, and stood. "You coming?" Lupin shrugged tiredly and grabbed his books,and followed Maya out of the room. Severus watched out of the corner of his eye with irritation, but then distracted himself with Lily.

"Where are we going?" Lupin asked his determined companion.

"Dublin," she answered shortly.

"Dublin?" He grabbed her arm. "We can't go to Dublin. That's ridiculous. If you really want a butterbeer, we can go to the village."

"It's Thursday." She said shortly. "Flitwick and his assistants spend Thursday nights in Rosemerta's."

"And you know this how?"

"No one has snuck off campus more than I have, remember?" She gave a knowingsmile, and dragged him down the stairs to the dungeons. "Wait here," she said, and ran toher room, grabbed a small velvet sack, and hurried out. When she returned, James and Sirius stood next to Lupin chatting softy.

"What are you guys doing here?" she asked.

"We were wondering the same thing about Remus. Not often he follows a girl to her room, eh?" James grinned.

Maya suddenly felt a rush of rebellion. "We're going off. Care to join?"

"Where you headed?" Sirius asked.

"Well, I've got a sack of portkeys here that will take us all over the place." She rummaged through the sack, and held up objects wrapped in a clear plastic. "The snitch takes us to Dublin, the earring takes us to London, the bootlace takes us to … uh … Bath, I think. "

"Bath? Why on Earth would anyone want to go to Bath?" James fingered the wrapped bootlace with a mixture of mocking and jealousy.

"There's a charming café that I frequent with my father," she answered shortly.

"Do you have one for California?" Sirius asked.

"Of course." She shrugged.

"I think that maybe the best choice would bethe pub at the village ABOVE Hogsmeade," Remus interrupted lightly putting the portkeys back into the sack. "That way, should something happen, we will not be several countries away from where we are supposedto be."

At this, James and Sirius shared a look.

"Alright, then," James patted Remus on the shoulder. "Dublin it is!" He laughed, and grabbed the snitch from Maya. "Come on, then, out to the grounds."

"The grounds?" Maya asked.

"We can't portkey form HERE, it wouldn't make it thought the Hogwarts spells."

"Why don't we just floo?"

"You can floo from here?" asked Remus.

"Not from HERE," began Maya. "But there is a fireplace in the kitchen that is connected to a bakery in Diagon," she said with a mischievous grin. "Have you noticed that Professor Sprout had been putting on weight lately?"

They nodded. "Well," Maya continued. "It seems that on holiday two springs ago, Sprout discovered a small purveyor of organic baked goods by the name of "Yummy Dumplings"."

"Aw! Yummy Dumpling is responsible for Professor Sprout blowing up like a balloon?" James exploded in laughter. Maya held up a hand and nodded solemnly.

"Sadly, yes. She is so addicted, in fact, that she connected the kitchen to the kitchen in Diagon, so that Yummy Dumplings could bring her a weekly order."

"How do you get past the house elves?" Sirius asked.

"They're afraid of the dog," she added simply. She grinned, opened the door to the common room, whistled for Appian, and they headed off to the kitchen with the fluffy little dog in tow.

Maya, Remus, Sirius and James sat in a pub in Dublin, Ireland. Maya had been pleasantly surprised: she was actually greatly enjoying her time with the three boys. Sirius and James had both had their fair share of Guinness, while Remus was nursing his first. Maya was drinking sociably, and soaking in the company.

"So tell me, Maya, how is it that you and Severus got to be …. You and Severus?" James asked jovially, a bit slurred.

"Me and Severus are NOT 'Me and Severus'."

"Why is that?" he asked again.

"He's in love with Lily Evans, is why," she snorted. James laughed.

"That's my girl!" he chortled. "Always making the boys fall all over themselves for her." He lifted his glass in a toast for her. "Well, you can tell Severus it isn't worth the trouble. She's my girl." And he grinned broadly.

"Well, for someone who's your girl, she seems to like Sev an awful lot," Maya growled.

"Well, I guess technically she's not my girl right NOW … but give it time. She's going to Hogsmeade with me next weekend. It is then that I shall make my move!" he drawled in an exaggerated pirate-accent. Sirius shook his head in embarrassment for his slightly inebriated friend.

"Maya," Sirius began, "how is it that a girl like you falls for abloke like Snivellus?"

She looked at him patronizingly at the use of Severus's nickname. She rolled her eyes. "What do you mean a girl like me? What is it about me that makes me so out of his league?"

"You're gorgeous," Sirius said flatly. "He's greasy. And he has a huge nose."

"Yeah, well, I didn't always look l like this," she sniffed. "I don't think any one you guys ever even noticed me when I was a first or second year. No one questioned Sev and me being together then."

"You know you're right?" James looked up suddenly. "I don't remember you at all from our first year. Or Second!"

"Yes, well, I was the plump blondish bird with the frightful complexion and bushy hair."

"Well, looks aside, you're quite sociable. People just find it strange that someone friendly and charming would insist on spending all their time with someone so withdrawn and awkward." Sirius shrugged.

"We've been friends a long time," she started. "And anyway, I don't spend all my time with him. I have popular friends too. Friends who would meet your approval, I suspect, Sirius." She pointed her beer bottle at him as she spoke. "But I like Sev. He's smart. He's funny. He's a bit snarky, but he's a good person." She giggled a bit.

Sirius looked at her longingly. "You'll always have me, you know. I mean, I hate to be a second choice to Severus Snape, but I suppose I could manage." He took a swig of his beer, and sighed heavily. Maya giggled again, put her hand over his, and gave him a thankful look.

"Now all we have to do," said James rather loudly, "is get Remus a lady!"

More soon. I should be writing my paper. I'm so easily distracted. R and R. Make my procrastination worth while.


	22. Chapter 22

Uh oh. This is one of THOSE chapters. You know what I mean. You've been warned. READ AND REVIEWWWWWWWW.

When Maya returned to the castle, she snuck down to the dungeons, holding Appian tightly in her arms. She made it to the common room without a problem, set Appian down on her bed, and went quietly up to the boys' dormitories. She opened the door to Severus's room slowly and deliberately, and looked around with the bit of lumos light from her wand.

"Wait, a minute. You're alone!" she said loudly, causing Severus to snort in his sleep and sit up groggily.

"What? What the – Maya?" He squinted at her.

Maya waved her wand and lit the candles in the room, and shut the door quietly behind her. "Where are the other two?" she pointed to empty beds.

"Serving detention with Slughorn, I suspect. That's where they are most nights." He shook his head. "What are you doing here?"

She walked over and sat on his bed. He looked at her through squinted eyes that had not yet become accustomed to the light.

"Have you been drinking? You smell like some sort of muggle alcoholic beverage," he sniffed in distaste.

"I had a brew with Remus," she dismissed. "I just wanted to come up and apologize for our … row the other day … I'm sorry I poked fun at you. And Lily. And you family, uh, situation."

"I'm glad Remus could get you drunk enough to admit you were wrong," he glared through his words.

"Severus, don't pick another fight with me, for God's sake. I'm here to make up!"

"You don't deserve that," he spat at her.

"No, YOU don't deserve ME!" she said, all of the sudden. They both stopped, and looked at each other, and Maya was not at all sorry it had slipped out.

"I wasn't aware that I HAD you in any capacity," he said slowly, as if in pain.

"That isn't what I meant," she labored. "I mean, I'm coming here to say I'm sorry. To mend the bridge and all that. I could just let you be, and go off into my own little world. But I want us to be friends again!"

"And yet you pop out to all parts of Europe in the middle of the night with Lupin, Black and Potter," he said, and then continued to speak over her surprise. "Yes, I knew where you were. I'm not a fool like you evidently believe."

"Well, fine. Who cares? Who cares if I was out with them?"

"I care, Maya."

"Yeah, well, I care that you practically sit on top of Lily Evans in the library."

"I was doing nothing of the sort. You're the one who let Lupin sleep on your astronomy book."

"You FANCY her!" She almost exploded.

"Of course I do! She's an intelligent, charming-"

"well-bred, beautiful person, I know, I know." Maya interrupted in anger. "You've only mentioned it every other day."

"Truth has a funny way of making itself obvious," he retorted coldly.

"Yeah? Well then, what the hell am I? Am I not intelligent enough for you? Not charming enough? Not BEAUTIFUL enough? It can't be that I'm not well bred, because let's FACE it … I'm the most OBNOXIOUSLY well-bred person left at this damnable school! And I don't even care about that sort of thing!" She had leaned over so she was right in his face, which still stared down at her, unflinching. "What do you want from me?" she cried.

"You are most certainly not being very charming at the moment," came his reply. And she didn't know what to do. She was deeply hurt. And deeply offended. So she slapped him across the face.

Severus knew it was coming, and he didn't' even try to stop it. Maya had always been an emotionally volatile character, but he suddenly felt gluttonous for punishment. When she slapped him, he didn't even move. He just looked at her, and watched her face grow from feral to emotional to angry and then to cold and passive, and slightly broken.

"You may not think I'm charming, Severus, but I am attractive, and I know you know that. And I know you know that everyone else here knows it. And I am intelligent, and loyal and … I have enough good-qualities that everyone recognizes but you, so, I guess, that's where we are." She stood to go, but then turned back around and sat down. "Tell me, Severus, what is it about Lily?" When she got no response but his empty stare, she shook her head and stood again. She had almost reached the door when she heard the bed creak. She looked behind her and saw that Severus had stood, and was standing, facing her in the candlelight.

"She's easy to be with," he began. "Much easier than you are."

"What does that mean?" she asked in disgust.

"She's a muggle-born. She's not aware of all the pressures of this world that exist for me … for you…they don't even occur to her," he began.

"What are you talking about?" she spat. "Stop giving excuses."

"This is exactly what I'm talking about, Maya. She and I don't fight. We have nothing to fight about. There is nothing REAL between us." He took a step towards her. "There are classes, and people and the rest of the nonsense of being in school, but nothing of any substance." He noticed Maya was looking at him in confusion and suspicion. "Please understand, Maya, your beauty and position of luxury and charming intelligence does not escape my notice," he grumbled at her in almost-embarrassment. "But it is a lot easier to stand next to Lily than it is to stand next to you."

"Are you saying I make things difficult?" She looked around in defeat, and threw up her hands.

"Yes, I am." He folded his arms over his chest. "It is quite difficult to be Miss Howe's sidekick," he said it with distaste.

"Since when are you my sidekick?" she snorted.

"Not recently, at any rate. You reserve that esteemed position for LUPIN."

She put her head in her hands. "LUPIN! ARGHH!" She approached him menacingly and stepped right up to him. "Remus and I went for a drink! We went to talk about how idiotic I was being in regards to fighting with you all the time!"

"Yes, it is rather idiotic," he agreed snarkily. "But, do tell, what does dear old Remus have to say on the subject of you and me?"

"I don't know! It's not like I even listen to a word that comes out of his mouth," she said rudely. She smacked him on the shoulder to exaggerate her point, and he grabbed her wrist tightly. She flinched in pain. "Ow!"

"I think that's quite enough physical abuse for one night," he said dryly. She tried to jerk out of his grasp, but he held tight, and grabbed her other hand in the process. She writhed wildly, and he wrapped his arms loosely around her, pinning her arms behind her back.

"Sev, stop!"

"Are you quite through?" he asked through gritted teeth. They stared each other down for a moment before he suddenly became very aware of her vanilla perfume wafting toward him. He didn't know whether to sneer or laugh. So he decided against both, and leaned forward and kissed her hard. The first kiss he had initiated between them. He grabbed her lips in his and pressed tightly. He felt her arms struggling to get free in his hands, so he roughly moved his hands up to her forearms, expecting to be pushed away violently. When he was rewarded, however, by her hands snaking up to grab tightly into his hair, he released her arms totally, and held her tightly against his body. The kiss turned passionate quickly – she seemed to be a desperate to kiss his as he was her: she nibbled his bottom lip, and he let his tongue loosely caress hers. The kiss lasted as long as possible before they had to break for breath.

"How late are your roommates going to be gone?" she asked in a heated whisper.

"I don't know," he said back, nuzzling her ear with his nose. He began to kiss her hear, breathing heavily into her hair and neck. She grabbed the hem of his shirt, and slid her hands almost tentatively up to rest on his naked chest. Her warm hands on his flesh prompted him to grab her head, and start kissing her neck softly, listening in satisfaction to the content moans that were elicited form her throat. She turned her head ad grabbed his lips again, deepening the kiss almost immediately. He leaned back, and looked at her with fire in his eyes.

"Come with me," he said in a low voice. He threw his cloak over his body, and held her hand tightly. They padded quickly and silently down the stairs and out the common room door. Severus didn't even care about getting caught at that point. In fact, it was the farthest thing from his mind. They went up one floor on a back-castle staircase, and they came to a large door.Severus fumbled in the small pockets of his cloak, and produced a large gold key.

"Where did you get a key to the prefects bathroom?" she asked in an impressed breathe.

"Stole it," he shrugged. "And then made a copy. A useful place to brew potions when one does not want to be discovered," he added in extra explanation. He pushed the door open, and then shut it softly behind them before pulling Maya close yet again for another deep kiss. This time, without the threat of discovery, their hands began to wander – her rubbed up and down her arms softly, and she ran her fingers on his neck, back and chest. The cloak dropped behind him, and she took him more tightly in her arms.

"What are we doing," he asked her in between kisses.

"I don't know," she admitted, laying sensual kisses along his Adam's apple and collarbone. "But I don't care."

"But Maya," he began, not with any real intention of stopping.

"Sev, stop thinking about it." She looked at him then, her lips swollen from kisses, and she smiled. Genuinely. But with worry in her eyes. Until she saw the want in his features. She gained confidence, and grabbed his hand. She walked him over to one of the large pool-like tubs in the room, and waved her wand over all twelve faucets, all of which began to pour steaming bubble bath water. He didn't even question her, but began to kiss her with a new fervor, the sound of rushing water behind them. He fingered the buttons that ran down the front of her gray cardigan. She had only buttoned the two buttons right at her chest, so the fabric slipped off her shoulders easily. He ran his hands appreciatively over the smoothness of her shoulders in a pink, silk camisole, and then slowly pulled the shirt over her head, tossing it carelessly behind him. He kissed and licked at her collar then, grabbing her tightly around the waist. She kicked off her shoes, and stepped backwards away from him into the steaming water, which had almost filled the tub. She turned around, her back to him, and began to wade deeper into the water until the hem of her knee-length gray skirt was almost touching the water. She hummed to herself quietly, andslipped it over her hips, being careful to step out of it without getting much water on it, and she tossed it aside.

Severus watched her as she undressed slowly, becoming more and more aroused with the drop of each garment. When she reached around and unclasped her bra, sliding it off her arms, and throwing it to the side, he began to kick off his own shoes in a much more clumsy manner. He took a deep breath and removed all his clothing, and followed Maya into the steaming bath. She was standing away from him, thigh-deep in hot water, the bubbles around her body glinting and shining. He waded to her, and put his arms around her from behind, pressing himself into her as much as possible. She turned slowly, and looked at him in the dim light. She kissed him lightly once, then more persistently. She licked her lips, smiled, and settled into the bath up to her shoulders, much to Severus's dismay, hiding herbody. He knelt down in the water, letting the warmth cover him to his chest.

"Come over here," she pulled his arm over to an area near the wall, where there was a stone bench built into the tub. He sat on it, the water at his mid-chest lever, and she turned to face him. She got closer, and straddled him, placing a knee on the bench on each side of his thighs. She pulled her chest to be pressed against his, and they kissed again. Wildly. Passionately. Hands were everywhere. He felt her get closer to him, and run her hands down his chest to his thighs and his erection. She smiled at him in embarrassment, and angled herself above him. They both fumbled for a moment, not meeting each other's gazes, until finally she lowered herself slowly and steadily into him. It took a moment, but when he was fully inside her, she sighed shakily, and wrapped her legs around his back. She leaned in, and began to kiss him again, slowly. But slowly grew to fervently, and fervently grew to crazy. They made love in the bathroom twice that night, barely speaking, but loving each other through silence.

Okay. Now I REALLY have to write my paper. This is getting ridiculous. Ugh. I hate school ... cheer me on, guys. I graduate in three months! Finally a degree! Cheer me on with reviews, too. Review help me to stay in school. :)


	23. Chapter 23

PRESENT DAY:

Two figures popped into existence outside a large mansion on a cliff over the sea. They tromped through the garden in the moonlight and swept through to the door, where the smaller figure used the huge rod-iron knocker to pound on the door. There was silence, and then a light blinked on in the upstairs window, followed a moment later by another light in the front room. Finally, the door opened slowly, and a tall, thin, matronly-looking woman with wisps of gray hair woven through a sandy brown braid peeked out.

"Maya! Sweetie! What are you doing here?" Jeamara Howe, Maya's mother, threw open the door in happy surprise, revealing herself in a shimmering burgundy robe. "Come in! Come in!" She ushered the two of them into the comfortable front room. "Here, here," she waved, and a tray of tea appeared in front of her. She handed Maya a cup, and then turned to Snape. "You, Sir? Would like some tea?"

"No, thank you, Madam." Snape bowed slightly.

"Mother, you remember Severus, don't you?" She said lightly, sipping her tea, wandering into the parlor and sitting comfortably on an ottoman. She waved her wand, and a fire appeared in the fireplace.

"No, I'm afraid I do not," she smiled apolojetically at Snape. "Have we met previously?"

"Not for many years, I'm afraid." He followed Maya to the parlor, and took a seat on the couch near her.

"Yes, you do, Mother," Maya sighed. "Severus Snape? My friend from Hogwarts?"

"Oh dear me! Of course! Severus, I never would have guessed that was you!" She clapped her hand over her chest as if in happy shock. "You've grown up, my boy! Dear me!"

"Yes, well, the years have not been as kind to me as they have you, Madam."

"Oh, so charming. So charming! Here! Have some tea." She thrust a cup in his hands, ignoring his protests. "I had no idea you were still in touch with Maya! What has it been now, more than a decade, I should think."

"Yes … an unfortunate series of events have brought us together again," he said darkly, inhaling the gingery smell of the steam curling off the tea.

"You're other idiotic children have been trying to get themselves killed," Maya joked pointedly.

"What about my idiotic children?" Came a scratchy voice, booming from the other room.

"Dad!" Maya jumped up, and hopped over to the door, where an elderly, yet stately man of rather impressive girth, came into view. He adjusted his bifocals, and smiled as Maya threw her arms around him tightly, kissing him on the cheek.

"Hello, dear! What are you doing here in the middle of the nihgt?"

"Middle of the … It's 7:30, Dad!"

"Eh … it's dark outside."

Maya rolled her eyes, and escorted her father in to the room.

"Who's your friend, Maya? We have not been properly introduced." He walked over and put a hand out to Snape. "Satinum Howe, my boy. Are you a friend of my daughters'?"

"Yes, Sir, all four of them, actually. Severus Snape."

"Dad, you remember Severus. He went to school with us."

"I do," he paused, and peered over his bifocals suspiciously. "I've heard your name around town, Severus. Word is that you're a Death Eater and a traitor." He stated it matter-of-factly, as if this piece of information was the day's wearther report.

"Satinum!" Jeamara said sharply, looking horrified.

"Dad, Sev is not a Death Eater! For Merlin's sake!"

Satinum shrugged then, and smiled. "Well, good then. I would hate to find out that my daughters were getting mixed in with the wrong crowd!" He cackled. "Good, good …" He settled down onto the couch next to his daughter. "So Maya. How is the theater business going?"

"Brilliantly. We opened two weeks ago. The reviews are mixed, but positive on the whole."

"Have you seen her show yet, Severus?" Satinum asked with an expectant half-glare.

"Unfortunately, no. We've been most busy trying to-" He spoke deliberately, but Satinum was the type of man who felt his wisdom was in direct proportion to his impressive age. He had a bad habit of talking over everyone in the room, and speaking his opinions as if they were the gospel.

"Well why on Earth not? Just a stone's throw away, over in the city by the bay."

"Dad! Severus is too busy for that nonsense at the moment." Maya waved her hands dismissively.

"Too busy to see your show? Maya, you need to meet men who are aren't so involved with themselves that they can't take an evening to appreciat your talents and interests!" He looked over his glasses at his daughter, who was rolling her eyes. Snape raised an eyebrow, and glared at Maya. "And," he added, settling back into his chair. "Next time you bring a man home, bring home one who isn't a business partner of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!"

"Oh for Heavan's sake, Satinum." Jeamara stood to refill her teacup. "Severus, pay no attention to him." Jeamara returned to her seat, but not before smacking Satinum lightly on the arm. "So sorry, dear. Really." She calmed, and continued to sip her tea.

"Mother, I have a couple of questions for you, actually. We've gotten into a bit of a bind as of late."

"How can I help you, dear girl?" asked Jeamara, looking more interested thatn concerned. Snape realized that as the wife of a crotchety author, problems her children faced were probably the most excitement this poor woman got anymore.

"Well, it seems that Voldemort-"

"Ahem," coughed Satinum. "We will continue to refrain form using his name, if you please."

"What? Why?" Maya scoffed.

"The man almost caused a coup! He deserves some respect for his brilliance in military strategy." Satinum nodded firmly. "If he wants to be referred to by something other than his first name, then re-name him we will."

Severus opened his mouth to respond to the man's ludicrous line of logic, but caught Maya shaking her head slightly at him. He decided against an argument with the eccentric old man, and opted instead to let Maya handle her family.

"Satinum," Jeamara began, "I don't think he cares what you call him now. He's been dead for over ten years."

"Well, technically, he's still alive," Maya tossed in. "He tried to kill Aria, and he stole one of Aunsten's necklaces." She took a quiet sip of her tea.

"What do you mean he's not dead!" exploded Satinum earnestly.

"He stole some of Aunsten's jewelry?" asked Jeamara at the same time.

"I'm glad you're both so worried about Aria," Maya grumbled.

"If Aria was in trouble, we would know about it," Satinum demanded hotly.

"Since when are YOU worried about Aria?" her mother accused gently.

"Mother, It's MEENA that I don't like. Aria and get along fine!"

"Why don't you like Meena? She never did anything to you," groused Satinum.

"Arghh! You two are driving me CRAZY. Can I please get to the point! Sev! Wake up!" She said pointedly, getting his attention. Snape had been sitting with his head in his hands, trying to drown out the sounds of this toturous conversation between a strangely cheerful Jeamara, and overly exasperated Maya, and the old, set-in-his ways wizard she called Dad. He suddenly had a vision of Maya in another twenty years as a combination of her parents' worth traits, and he felt a migraine coming on quickly. Suddenly, he seemed to understood the four Howe sisters on a much deeper level from this brief, albeit informative meeting with their parents.

"Well, I do not need to be addressed in such a fashion." Satinum stood, and started shuffling resolutely out of the room. "If you need me, I shall be in my study!" Maya flinched in annoyance as the door slammed.

"Ignore, him, dear. His latest interview for the Daily Prophet was post-poned, and he's feeling a touch insecure." Jeamara smiled, and winked slightly. "Now. Please tell me what's been going on?"

"Well, it's not really anything for you to worry about …. Aria's fine, she just had a bit of a run in on the job, as it were. But I wanted to ask you something …" She reached in her pocket and pulled out the chunk of malachite. She handed it to her mother, who eyed it with recognition. "Meena used to wear this, didn't she? As a child?"

"Of course. This kept her from getting smeared all over the vineyard by those thestrals," Jeamara gave a quirky smile. "Why?"

"Well, I just can't figure out why it didn't protect Ilias. I mean, Ilias was her son, right? A direct Von Tost descendant."

Jeamara looked suddenly tired, as if she were ebeaten down by the sadnmess of the memory. "Oh, Maya. I don't know why it didn't work for Ilias."

"But he was wearing it, wasn't he?" she pushed.

"Maya, why are you even bringing this all up again?" she snapped. "We already told you it wasn't your fault. What happened is just a tragedy of the human experience."

"I'm not trying to disperse blame, mum, I'm trying to figure out why it saved Meena from thestrals, but didn't save Ilias from apperation. Does it only work for women?"

"No, no, it works for anybody you give it to. As long as they have Von Tost blood in them."

"Well, none of Meena's rocks have any magical reading coming off of them whatsoever. It's as if she killed their power, somehow. Mine work. Athena's work. Aria's work. Meena's are a dud. Why?"

"I don't know." Jaemara sighed. "She must have lost a piece. Without any one of the pieces, all the stones pretty much loose their power." She paused and leaned back in her chair. "Apparently there was a ring that was lost for 65 years at one point. It made the whole collection worthless until my great-aunt realized they had left it on the finger of the previous owner after she died. Once they dug it up, everything started to have a huge magical reading."

"How am I supposed to make sure it's all accounted for? I don't know what should be there."

"Yes, but I do." Jaemara smiled slightly, and continued to sip her tea.


	24. Chapter 24

Maya and Snape returned to Hogwarts a brief time later, after Maya said her goodbyes to her family. They trudged in silence back to the dungeons, Maya carrying a rolled piece of parchment in her pockets.

"I'm sorry about my father," Maya finally said. Snape just snorted. "No, really. He's old. He feels as though he doesn't need to censor any of his thoughts, because his age has somehow earned him the right to just blurt out anything that comes to mind."

"It takes a lot more than a man I hardly know accusing me of being a Death Eater to unhinge me."

She sighed, and tossed the parchment on Snape's desk. "I know, I know. But it's a bit embarrassing. I mean REALLY. I bring a guest home, and he immediately accuses them of being a traitor!"

"Well," he settled into his chair. "I was a Death Eater."

"I guess … I mean, granted, I've been over the pond for quite some time now, so I don't really know what being a Deatheater entails … forgive me if not as shocked as you might like," she said dryly. He looked at her, not offering an explanation. She raised her eyebrows, trying to prompt him, but he remained silent. "Fine, don't tell me. I don't want to know anyway." She grumbled, and flopped into the chair opposite the desk. She unrolled the parchment, and began to cross jewels that were present off the list. Suddenly, she stopped, looked at Snape with satisfaction, and circled a word on the parchment with a loud "Aha!"

"I take you have found the missing piece?

She sniggered. "I know it's not funny, but I just pity the poor bastard she shoved it off on… Probably her husband." She shook her head. "She's so manipulative!" She swiveled the parchment on the table, and Snape looked at the marked phrase. Opal Cufflinks. And suddenly, everything hit Snape like a ton of bricks. He stared for a moment, trying to sort out his thoughts, barely registering what Maya had continued to babble about. "Well, I suppose I'll have to ask her about it sooner or later … she's such a bloody moron!" She looked up at Snape, and immediately furrowed her brow in worry. He was looking more pale than usual. He stood, and disappeared into his study. She heard him rummaging about through drawers and cupboards.

"Severus, what is it?" She asked in concern.

"You don't have to ask Meena about it," he growled.

Maya's eyebrow shot up to practically her hairline. "What are you talking about?"

Snape looked uncomfortable, and swept back into the room in a pacing manner. "Do you remember the year that Meena seemed to have …. A seemingly ridiculous interest in me?"

"Of Course. What does that have to do with-"

"Do remember the birthday present she gave me that year?"

"Oh! Oh! I remember being really mad at her. .. I can't remember why …." She squinted.

"Look. Here. I kept it … don't ask me why," he tossed a small jewelry box on his desk, and Maya looked at it with huge eyes. "Open it."

She opened it slowly to find a pair of gorgeous starburst-shaped cufflinks made of opal. Snape looked away, and swept back into his study calling over his shoulder before slamming the door,

"I'm so thrilled I could re-unite the collection!"

Snape paced in his corridors angrily, knocking things over as he went. To hell with it all, he would fix them later. Finally, exhausted, he sank into his couch, and closed his eyes. He was so tired of everything being his fault. Granted, this whole mess was Aria's fault, but he, of course, turned out to be unknowingly involved in a major capacity. He wanted to throttle her. And Dumbledore. And Voldemort, while he was at it. He stood, took a long swig of whiskey from the bottle, put it down, swallowed, thought to himself, 'fuck it all', and took another swig. Nine long swigs later, he felt much better in his wretched misery, and laid down on the couch. Eyes closed, he drifted off to inebriated sleep.

Which he realized, as soon as his dream started, was a mistake. He was at his home. But not his home in Spinner's End, his childhood home. He recognized it immediately, and walked to the door slowly. He looked around, and was surprised and horrified to see that Maya had infiltrated his dream as well. Then he noticed what she was wearing and thought to himself in distaste, 'I remember this. Great. Not a drunken dream like I had hoped for. Instead, one more memory of a life gone wrong.' Snape looked at her, and she was wearing gold. Pure gold. She was like a sun goddess, standing before him, smiling crookedly. Aria had just been accepted into some job in the United States Government. He didn't really know what the hell it was, other than there was a banquet, and he had gone with as Maya's date. They had gone to the dinner: an awkward evening in a place called 'Virginia' with Satinum and Jaemara Howe, as well as Aria, Athena, Meena, Athena's fiancée, and Maya. Jaemara looked younger in his memory than the woman he had met that evening, with less gray in her hair and fewer wrinkles around the eyes and mouth. She wore and elegant gown, and stood distinguished on the arm of Satinum, her much older husband, who looked much the same now as he did 20 years ago. They had gone to dinner, Severus had been as invisible and polite as possible, Maya had gotten bored, and they had said they were returning to school, but had instead taken a short walk around the grounds of the large hotel where the event was hosted. When out of the range of her family, she had held his hand, huddling close to him for warmth. Somehow … Snape couldn't remember the exact turn of events … the two of them had ended up walking up the steps to his family home. She stood behind him now in the dream, and waited, youthful excitement on her face.

Snape fumbled for the keys, and swung the door open slowly. No one was home. No one was ever home. They walked inside, and Snape was aware of queasiness that he felt at remembering his parents' home, as well as the nervous twitching that the young Severus felt as the wealthy Maya Howe, with her rich father and mother, walked through his rather modest abode. But she said nothing. Her eyes were on him the whole time. She giggled, and took his hand, and started pulling him up the stairs. When they reached his room, she stopped, and leaned seductively against the door. She had said something then, but his dream had edited it into silence, and he just felt himself float through the door behind her, reaching out to touch her, but not quite making it. She dropped her dress then, slowly, delicately, as she walked to his modest bed. She stepped out of it, and he couldn't help but marvel at her young, supple 17-year-old body. From what he had seen, she was still in relatively good shape, but nothing near the body she had back then. She grabbed his robes, and pulled him toward her, and he could feel himself kissing her passionately and longingly. He felt himself touching her body, and it almost felt real.

They made gentle love then, on the bed, for over an hour. Afterwards, they lay in each other's arms, exhausted and satisfied, not speaking. Thank God, Snape thought to himself. He remembered the conversation of that day well enough, and it made him cringe. But he had thought his relief too soon. He couldn't stop himself from opening his mouth and speaking to the dream Maya.

"Maya, I'm going to join the Deatheaters," he said. No! he shouted in his mind, but his younger mouth was uncontrollable. "I'm going to be with Voldemort after I finish at Hogwarts." He remembered she nuzzled into his chest, and looked at him in confusion.

"Volde-who? Deatheaters? Is that some little social club with Lucius?" She giggled. "Cute name."

"Voldemort, Maya. I know you know who I'm talking about," he almost snapped. But he felt such a deep affection for her, all he could manage was a light sarcasm. He held her naked body close to his, and she molded to him as much as she could.

"Isn't he a bit of a nutter? I mean, I don't really know, mind you, but I hear my dad and his friends talking, and-"

"The Dark Lord is not a 'nutter'," he almost spat. "He's more powerful than … " He paused, thinking hard. "More powerful than all other wizards," he came up with finally. It had a dramatic touch to it, but to the older Snape, it just sounded ridiculous.

Maya leaned up and looked at him through her tumbling hair. "You think that by getting a job with him that you'll be powerful?"

"Of course I will. He can give us everything, and I'm not going to pass up that opportunity," he began. Maya, to his extreme dismay, laughed heartily and dismissively.

"Sev, we already HAVE everything. What else do we need?"

"No, Maya, YOU have everything. I have nothing! You forget that. You're wealthy, and a pureblood." He sat up, and waved his hand around the room. "Do you see this? This is where I LIVE. I don't live in a mansion on the coast, or a summer home in California, or a Vineyard in Italy. I live here." He shook his head. "The Dark Lord doesn't care that I'm a half-blood. He knows I'm loyal, all the same." His eyes were heavy in his head.

"Sev, I don't care that you're a half-blood. I mean, really, does anyone?"

"You're so naïve," he said coldly. "The whole world cares. Everyone with power will know that I have dirty blood. They'll look down on me –"

"Severus! You've been hanging around Lucius FAR too much. I suggest you re-think this plan of yours. I've heard that there are a lot of people who don't agree with Voldemort. What if he goes to Azkaban? You'll go with him if you're one of his workers." She shook her head in vague worry. "OR, what if turns out to be a complete lunatic? No one will ever take you seriously again."

"Maya," he croaked out, and abruptly changed the subject. Snape remembered this moment. He knew what was about to come out of his mouth, and he fought against it with everything in his memory, to no apparent avail. This was worse than sitting in a penseive. "Maya, come with me."

"Come with you! I thought we already discussed that I didn't NEED social help form Voldemort." Her voice was accusatory and haughty.

"No, no," he shook his head. "Marry me." He looked into her eyes, and saw them go wide with surprise, and then regret, and then embarrassment and something akin to annoyance.

"What?" she exclaimed. "Marry you?" she whispered. "I don't …. I don't know ….. WHAT?"

"I want you to marry me, Maya." He stood firm with his tone, even though his heart was quickly falling into the pit of his stomach.

"But, Sev … what about college?"

"College?" he looked confused. "You're going to that muggle institution? When did you decide this?"

"Sev, I was always going to go to college."

"Why? Why are you throwing away your station in life?"

"My station? You're the one giving yourself to Voldemort and the Deathbiters!"

"DEATHEATERS. You're a pureblood witch. Why are you going to waste the next five years living in the muggle world?"

"Because. One thing that your precious Dark Lord doesn't seem to realize is that our world is TINY. It is one pathetic little blip in the Universe, but the Muggle world is huge! It's a good idea to be proficient in both cultures. The day will come when we can't hide ourselves away any more, Sev. When that day comes, I would rather be on the winning side. And the winning side is as a college graduate, Sev. Not a Deatheater."

"You know, everyone else in our year is going to graduate, get married and go into apprenticeship, or get a job as PART of our world."

"Is THAT why you want to marry me? Because everyone else is doing it?" She raised her eyebrow in anger.

"No, Goddammit, I love you!" She watched as he clenched and unclenched his fists in anger.

"Severus, I'm seventeen. So're you! Don't you think that's a bit young? I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself!" She looked at him with wide eyes. "If people want to get married now, good for them, but I want to get my life started first!"

"You're life has started, Maya. Why can't you recognize that!" He held her chin in his hand, and saw in her eyes sorrowful determination. His anger grew inside him.

"Yes, my life as a pampered socialite BRAT with no real skills other than being the daughter of a rich family! I could surely get a job at the ministry with THOSE qualifications." She rolled her eyes, holding back tears. "I want to do something for real. Like Aria! You saw where she works tonight. Maybe you weren't as impressed as the rest of us were. But THAT'S what I want! I want to BE something."

"So that's it, then. You're running away. To America, I'd wager. If you wanted to be so much like a sister, why couldn't you have chosen Meena?" He threw the blankets off himself and stormed to a wardrobe, where he threw on a pair of trousers, and began pacing wildly. Maya sat in the bed, trying very hard not to cry or throw something at him.

"You want me to be like Meena? Like MEENA? Alright, FINE, I'll be like Meena." She stood up, and threw on a robe, and folded her arms. "Severus Snape, you are a disgusting half-blood who isn't worthy of the name wizard." She watched as he stopped in his tracks, and stared at her with fire in his eyes that she had never seen. "That's right, that's what Meena REALLY thinks. So fuck you." She stood, glaring at him. "If anyone goes anywhere, it should be you coming with me. Come with me and leave all this madness behind. All this half-blood-pure-blood-Voldemort-Deatheater bullshit that is going to BURY you!"

"No." He stared her down. "No. I don't need you to SAVE me. Unlike you, I don't run away from my destiny."

"I'm not running away," she said coldly. "I'm just creating my own." She grabbed her dress and shoes, and turned on her heel. She walked out of the room, followed a moment later by Severus. She walked with her head high, not speaking, and apperated back to Hogsmeade. It wasn't until she was safely alone behind Honeydukes that she doubled over and cried.

Snape jerked himself awake, and sat up, although the room was still spinning in a bit of an alcoholic haze. He had watched her leave that day, but he never knew that she cried. He had never assumed. He massaged his head slowly. He hardly ever thought about their grand falling out. He had tried very hard to get away from her for the rest of the year. It had been rough, but he had, just as she had predicted, buried himself in the Deatheaters. He had thrown all his tired, overburdened emotions into his hate for the Marauders, and his worshipful obsession with Lily Evans. Lily was, in a way, more painful to love than Maya. Of course Maya would turn him down. She was Maya Howe, for Merlin's sake. She should be marrying some wealthy bugger in a fabulous ceremony, and living her life out in bored splendor. No one expected her to waste her life with Snape. I guess she didn't think so either. Lily, on the other hand, was ready to throw herself headfirst into the wizarding world. She was a muggle-born. She had no social status! When she chose Potter over him, it was painful and embarrassing, not expected. His emotional masochism fed into his rage, and his rage fed into his ability to successfully follow the Dark Lord. In a way, he was sorry that Maya had turned him down. What would life have been like if he had been, in essence, Mr. Maya Howe? Could it have possibly been worse than the emotional torture he had endured at the hands of the Dark Lord? But they were both, as she had astutely pointed out, young and volatile. Their marriage never would have lasted, and then where would he be? Alone, broken and stranded in America, while his 'wife' wandered around in the Muggle world shamelessly playing rock operas on her guitar. He sighed, and stumbled up to his bed, falling again into a fitful, but thankfully dreamless, sleep.


	25. Chapter 25

Hey Gang! We're getting down to the line … what's going to happen? I know this story is taking forever to finish. Forgive me. But honest, there isn't all that much left. Although, I am determined to make it to 60,000 words. And now that you've all stayed with me through all the boring filler chapters, stuff is REALLY going to start happening. Thanks for everyone who is reading, and even more thanks to those of you who are reviewing! (I've seen the stats … I know there are lurkers out there.) Anyway, leave me something. Comments, reviews, really, anything is good. BTW, I still don't own any of the JKR characters. This particular chapter is a bunch of little shortnesses that will eventually lead up to the final showdown.

Thanks

Popess2

Maya stepped into Dumbledore's office slowly. "Headmaster?" She always felt uncomfortable in this room. It reminded her of too many scoldings and threats of potential letters home during her years at school. She was determined to not shrink back into the teen she once was, so she stood as tall as she could as she walked in to meet Dumbledore's pleasant gaze.

"Miss Howe! So good of you to update me on your progress. I hear that Severus has confined himself to his quarters," he shrugged merrily, "I do hope that won't last too long. Especially when the two of you were just starting to get along splendidly."

Maya couldn't decide if she wanted to wince or blush or roll her eyes. She should have known that having any sort of relationship with a professor would have gotten around to the rest of the staff sooner or later. Especially when said professor was the reclusive potions master. "Yes, well, you know Sev. He'll get over it soon enough," she said lightly. "What we've determined is that since Voldemort has a piece from Aria's quarter of the inheritance, her portion of the stuff doesn't work anymore. We found the rest of Aunsten's stuff though … even one particularly 'long-lost' piece, as it were," She paused, and looked a little uncomfortable. "It's interesting, really … Now that I've brought it all together into my possession, NONE of it works since the bloodstone piece is missing. Except the Turquoise, which is quite strange. But either way, doesn't that solve our problem? I mean, the bloodstone shouldn't work anymore. None of the rest of it does. " She sank into a chair, looking extremely confused.

"Miss Howe, I highly suggest that you destroy as much of that jewelry as possible, if not all of it."

She looked up, surprised. "What? Why?"

"Voldemort is an intelligent creature. He will discover his trophy has lost its power, and he will come looking for the means to make it work again."

"You mean he's going to steal Aunsten's stuff?" she almost whined. She was so sure this had come to an end.

"On a much more serious note, Miss Howe, he may try to steal one of your sisters. As far as I know, he is only aware of Aria, so she is the one in the most danger."

Maya suddenly couldn't take it anymore. She dropped her head on the desk. Her muffled voice whined back at Dumbledore. "Goddammit, Aria! Goddammit, goddammit goddammit!" She popped up, and threw the stuff on the desk. One by one she started destroying every piece of jewelry in the collection while Dumbledore sat and watched her angry, hysterical display mutely. Until, that is, she grabbed the turquoise and prepared to incinerate it with her wand. At that, Dumbledore reached out, and grabbed her wand hand, stopping the motion with his strong palm.

"Not that one, Miss Howe. I believe that one may still hold … secrets." He picked it up, and dangled it in front of her. "I believe this is the one that turned your eyes such an engaging shade of bronze?" the muscles around his eyes twitched ever so slightly. Her eyes were wild, and shot up to meet his. "This one has extraordinary power, Miss Howe. I suspect it is a horocrux of your Aunt's soul. Never put it on, for it will take over your body, as it tried to do the last time you put it on. But, with this stone, you control Aunsten's power, and therefore, you will be able to control the bloodstone. Destroy it, and there is no chance of ever getting the bloodstone back. We will loose it's potential magic to Voldemort forever."

"A what? A horocrux? Are you kidding me?" Maya looked as if she was about to cry. "I just want this to all go away! I don't want this problem anymore! I want to go home, where people are normal! No one has horocruxes of their souls in San Francisco! Sure, my next-door neighbor is a cross-dressing pirate, but that's harmless! What is wrong with you people!" She stood and began to pace. "A week ago, I was sitting in a theater, playing my damn guitar! Now, I'm stuck with weird, half-dead evil people trying to kill me an my family!" She burst into fresh tears, and grabbed the turquoise from Dumbledore's hand, squeezing it as hard as she could. "I am NOT Harry Potter! I am not cut out for this!" She stood, threw it into her pockets, and tore from the room. She ran out to the grounds, and sank into the grass, and cried bitterly for a good long while, until she managed to get her wits and her dignity about her. She stalked off the grounds to apperate back to Grimmauld place, trying to hide her tears so no one would know what had happened to her.

Snape apperated to the Tom Riddle estate late that night. He had been sitting in his study, alone, when the Dark Mark began to burn on his arm, and had stumbled straightaway to the Dark Lord without even telling Dumbledore of his intentions. He approached Voldemort, bowed, and listened with well-hidden dread to the request the Dark Lord bade him.

"My new toy has stopped working, Severus," he growled coldly, holding the bloodstone trinket between his fingers. "Why is that?"

"I don't know, My Lord," he humbled, but Voldemort was not fooled.

"Crucio," he pointed at him, and sent him into spasms of pain. As he was writhing, Voldemort continued. "I think you know what happened to the rest of the Von Tost magic. I want it back, Severus. I want it BACK!"

He pulled his wand away from Snape, and began speaking in his low, raspy voice. "I'm not a fool, Severus. I know what this is. I think you may know as well. This is a Von Tost artifact! The stupid girl from the American ministry was a Von Tost. If she has destroyed the rest of the artifacts, as I suspect she has, I'm going to need her here. Her death will bring the power back to me." He laughed softly, and then growled. "The poor girl has made her own fate difficult…had she not meddled, I could have just stolen everything, and perhaps left her alive. A fine family, the Von Tosts." He paused and examined his wand. "Bring her to me, Severus. Her life is about to end."

"Yes, my Lord," he said, hiding the sick feeling in his stomach. "It will be done." He stood on shaky feet and walked out of the manor. He was not looking foreword to this discussion with Dumbledore.

Maya walked downstairs slowly, her head as high as she could hold it, and sat at the far end of the table. She wouldn't look at Meena, and she couldn't look at anyone else, so she stared at a spot above their heads. She had piled the make-up on, but everyone in the room could see that she had been crying. Little did they know, she was not the only one who was going to be upset that night.

When Snape walked into the room, flanked closely by Dumbledore and McGonigal, Maya did her damndest not to look, but Athena's quickly silenced gasp made her flit her eyes up. She saw out of the corner of her eye Snape's deeply bruised jaw and crooked, limpy steps, and felt an embarrassing batch of tears begin to push forth. She inhaled deeply, and bit her lip tightly.

"Good evening, everyone, good evening. Thank you all for coming at such short notice. We have a very important problem to discuss." Dumbledore sat, with McGonigal on his left and Snape on his right. "It seems that Voldemort had become inpatient," he stated carefully. "He wishes for Severus to abduct Aria, and bring her to him as a sacrifice, so that with her blood spilled, he can regain the power of the Von Tost magic."

"What?" Aria's voice caught in her throat. "He wants me?" Her eyes were squinted in anger.

"We, of course, will find another way to solve, the problem," Dumbledore put his hand up. "I do not intend to give you up to the Dark Lord."

"No, no, no. This is ridiculous. I'll go." She stood up, her hands leaning on the table menacingly. "I'm prepared, this time. I know what he's capable of. I can be used a bait, don't you see? Then, when his guard is down-" she was interrupted by Maya.

"What are you talking about? You can't just walk in there. Are you insane? Look what he did to Severus!" She pointed wildly. Severus glowered in the corner.

"If we have a PLAN," Aria began, "No one will get hurt! Why can't you trust that I have EXPERIENCE with terrorists!"

"The last time you went in, everything turned out just peachy, now didn't it?" Maya shouted back.

"Well Goddammit, Maya, what would you rather us do? If we send Severus back without me, he'll die!" Aria threw up her hands.

"So this is it, then?" Maya looked at Dumbledore. "I have to choose between Severus and my sister?"

"You, Maya, do not have to choose between any two people. This is not your choice to make, I'm afraid." Dumbledore stood. "I would appreciate it very much if you and Meena and Athena could leave the rest of us to discuss this. I assure you we will find a way to keep your sister safe." The tone in his voice suggested that she not argue.

"Come on, Maya," Athena stood, and grabbed her arm. Maya shook it off, and turned and stamped out of the room on her own. Meena smiled bitterly and followed close behind her. Athena mumbled a quiet apology to the room, and followed her younger sisters out the door.

ARIA

Aria was furious. She was beyond furious. She was absolutely livid. After several hours of discussion, they had come up with NOTHING. Nothing that would save her, Snape or anyone else. They had adjourned, opting to begin their thoughts again anew early the next morning. Snape had limped off to apperate back to Hogwarts with Dumbledore and McGonigal, without even a word to her. She knew he was sweating bullets. Without her, he was dead. She saw the Dark Lord. She knew he wouldn't hesitate to kill him. She, however, had a plan. She wasn't the head of her department for nothing, she thought with annoyance. She grabbed everything that she needed, and walked briskly out of the house in London. She, too, apperated to Hogwarts.

SNAPE

Snape awoke to the sound of a pounding on his door. He threw on a dressing gown, grumbled to himself, pulled his scraggly hair back into a bunch behind his head, and walked stiffly to his door. He opened it slowly, fully expecting to see the Headmaster standing with Pomphrey to try to make him take some blasted poultices for his injuries. He was surprised, therefore, to find Aria Howe standing at his door, a large cloak thrown over her shoulders, making her look much larger and bulkier than she actually was. She shoved her way inside, and slammed the door behind her.

"Fuck it all, Severus," she whispered, two inches from his face. "You're taking me to the Dark Lord. You know as well as I do that there isn't any other way. If I don't go and try to do something about this, he'll kill you, and then Dumbledore won't have his handy little spy to run around in the guise of a Deatheater."

"Aria, don't think that I will take orders from you," he threatened low in his throat.

"Severus, don't think that you have any other choice. I got there before, by myself, I'll do it again, if I have to. But if I go to the Dark Lord without you, you'll probably be killed anyway, so you might as well get used to the idea that you're going to die if you don't do what I say." She flared her nostrils at him.

"I highly doubt the Headmaster would approve of me taking you off to be murdered by the Dark Lord. We want to stop him, remember? Not GIVE you to him so he can regain all of Aunsten's power." He pushed past her to open the door. "Really, Miss Howe, what side ARE you on?" He motioned for her to leave, but his voice was tired, and Aria knew she had him right where she wanted him.

"Severus," she began, stepping closer to him. "I don't intend on dying tonight."

MAYA

Maya was furious. She was beyond furious. She was absolutely livid. How dare they throw her out? It was her friend, and her sister. No one else had such strong ties to BOTH of the involved parties. And anyway, what were they thinking? Voldemort didn't want Aria. He wanted HER. She was the one who had the final piece of jewelry. It was the turquoise that had pulled all of the power from the other pieces when they were destroyed. She had done a magical reading test, and the turquoise was reading with magical levels off the charts. And she had it all! If she destroyed the turquoise, she suspected all the power would be transferred into the bloodstone.

She opened her door, and began to walk down the stairs, when she heard someone lurking by the front door. She hid behind one of the thicker banisters, and watched. She almost combusted with renewed anger when she saw Aria sneak out of the house, doubtlessly headed to find Voldemort. Was she demented? He would kill her, and then, once he discovered that her death had no effect on the level of power the stone had, he would come after the rest of them, kill them, and finally get everything that he had wanted ANYWAY. Without Maya, they were all dead. She, however, had a plan. She wasn't the head of her theater department for nothing, she thought with annoyance. She grabbed everything that she needed, and walked briskly out of the house in London. She, too, apperated to Hogwarts.

HARRY

Harry awoke to a gentle shake. He opened his eyes, and saw Maya standing over him.

"Maya? What are you doing here? How did you get in?"

"Floo powder. Harry, I have a favor to ask of you." She pulled his hand, and dragged him out of bed.

"What is it? Is something wrong?" Harry was worried now. He had never seen her so worked up.

"I think Severus and Aria just did something incredibly STUPID," she spat. "I can't find them anywhere."

"What do you think they did?" he asked.

"I think they went to Voldemort," she began. "I need you to help me FIND them."

"You want me to go with you to find Voldemort?"

"No. I just need you to tell me how to get to the Riddle Estate."

"No. Maya, it's too dangerous. I'm going with you." He started to climb out of his bead, but she grabbed him.

"Harry, please don't do this to me. Listen. This is something I have to do alone." Her eyes were so imploring in the dark that he finally acquiesced.

"Fine. You can go alone. But you have to side-along apperate with me."

"What? I don't think so," she scoffed.

"But Maya, I know where they are. If we apperate together, I can get you there. I promise I'll leave as soon as we get there." Harry mentally crossed his fingers, knowing full well that he didn't know how to apperate without help. He just hoped that he would be able to help Maya and Aria and Snape. He put on his best 'honest' face, and finally Maya agreed. They grabbed Harry's shoes, and dashed out of the room.

A/N

OKAY gang. So now we have (count it up) Snape, Aria, Maya and Harry heading off to face Voldemort. This is where it all hits the fan. I suspect …. Like maybe 6 more chapters. Or something like that. Anyway, I've already started planning the epilogue, and the sequel. Right on. But now, I have to go finish my paper, because well, it's due day after tomorrow. So, everyone enjoy this, write me reviews, and Hopefully the end of this story will be up within the next week or so, after the rest of my midterms are done.

Thanks, All.

-Popess2


	26. Chapter 26

ARIA:

"You must have a plan. You can't possibly expect me to just walk you up to the Dark Lord," Snape hissed to Aria after they arrived in front of the Riddle Manor.

"Here," she thrust her wand at him. "Take this. I'd rather you have it than one of the actual Deatheaters." She deposited it in his hands. "Of course I have a plan. I'm trained military personnel, you fool."

"I didn't think I'd need to remind you of this fact, but as we discovered before, your insistence on relying wholly on your American, muggle training and experience doesn't necessarily apply in these situations!"

"Come on," she said grimly, and they started up the hill, Snape hesitantly pointing his wand at her back in a completely unconvincing manner.

MAYA:

Maya and Harry apperated (with some difficulty) to the Riddle estate. Harry stood up, and shivered. He remembered all too vividly the last time he had been here – after the tri-wizard tournament, as Pettigrew sliced open his arm to bring back the Dark Lord …. The pain in his scar progressed slowly from barely a prickle to a full burn. Maya looked around, shuddered with him, and pulled out her wand.

"Alright, Harry, look. I'm going after those idiots. Now, if anything should happen to me, I want you to give this to Sev, alright?" She handed him a small parcel from inside her pockets. He took it, worry in his eyes. "Now get out of here!"

"No. I'm not leaving you. You could use my help! You don't need to worry, I'm perfectly capable of-"

"Harry!" She poked her wand under his chin. "Get out of here, NOW."

"Wait," he tried desperately, looking over her shoulder. "Isn't that Snape and Aria?" He pointed at the hill, where indeed, two small figures were trodding up the hill, one in front of the other.

"Harry, go HOME!" She called over her shoulder, and she dashed off towards them, running up the hill as fast as she could. Harry waited a moment, looked around the graveyard, and then sprinted after her.

SNAPE:

Snape walked Aria into the manor. The Deatheaters who were stationed at various points throughout the house stood aside as they saw the pair, allowing them to ascend the stairs. Snape cleared his mind, and pushed Aria into the room. She stood in front of him, tall as possible, and looked at the back of the chair in which Voldemort sat, silently awaiting their arrival.

"My Lord," Snape began. "I have brought you the Howe woman."

Voldemort turned around slowly, and peered at them.

"Yes. Yes. Excellent." He stood, and attempted to walk forward … and then several things happened in such quick succession that Snape's head began to spin. The first was that Aria reached into her coat, as if to grab a wand. "But … her wand is with me …" Snape thought lamely to himself as he watched the events unfold. Aria reached in to her coat and pulled out what appeared to be some sort of small muggle weapon. Indeed, Aria had put her big plan into motion. Her plan, unfortunately, was to shoot Voldemort with a small pistol, and in the commotion, steal back the bloodstone, and apperate out as fast as possible. While this plan would not have worked even if Aria HAD been able to carry it out, matters were made worse when Maya burst through the door. As Snape would find out later from Harry, Maya had followed them, and apparently stupefied all the Deatheater guards so she could run up to meet them. With a shrill scream, she pointed her wand and hit Aria with a disarming spell.

Unfortunately, Aria had already fired, but the spell had caused her to miss her mark, instead hitting Peter Pettigrew in the shoulder with the bullet. He went down, screeching and snorting in pain. Snape looked at Voldemort with surprise. The Dark Lord looked a bit taken back himself. He immediately turned his attention on Maya, and Snape stood rooted to the spot, sure he would kill her. But right at that second, a voice yelled out, and everyone stopped dead in their tracks, and whipped their heads toward the door.

There, in the doorway, stood Meena, her wand pointed directly at the young boy she was holding by the collar of his shirt. Surprised as they all were to see Meena, they were more shocked to see her threatening Harry Potter with her wand.

"Everybody hold still or the boy dies!"

"Meena! You IDIOT! Don't offer up Harry to save us!" Maya looked at her, crazy and exasperated.

"No! The boy is MINE!" hissed Voldemort, his attention spared for the moment from the other Howe sisters.

"Alright," Meena agreed slowly. "But then Maya is mine." And she shoved Harry off to the side, and pointed her wand at Maya. "I've been waiting for this every moment for so many years," she growled. "Avada Kevadra!" She screamed, and green light shot out. Snape dove, and knocked them both out of the way, and on reflex, turned and returned the killing curse. For a moment, there was silence. Meena stood looking stunned, and then crumpled to the ground lifelessly. From somewhere in the background, Snape heard Aria scream loudly. Then, from nowhere, Voldemort was laughing. Peter was still twitching in pain on the ground, bleeding profusely from the arm, and Harry had rushed over to try to pull Maya off the ground.

"Severus! You fell in love with the victim. How sweet," but he held up his wand. "There is no room for that in this organization. Would you like to die first? Or watch her die, and then join her?"

"My Lord," he humbled. "I do not think you have all the facts-" he began

"Yeah," snarled Maya from the ground. "He just saved you a lot of trouble! Meena is an idiot, if you hadn't figured that out by the fact that she's so chummy with YOU," she dusted herself off, shaking with fear and anger, sure she was going to die. "You wanted Aria? She's the wrong sister! You may have gotten the bloodstone from her, but I destroyed the rest of Aunsten's jewelry. It's GONE. Except for this one…" She dangled the turquoise in her fingers, and Voldemort snapped and snarled. "That's right," she said more boldly. "All the power has been transferred into this one stone. This is all you need to make the bloodstone work again." Voldemort made a move for it, and she snatched it away.

"Don't be a fool, woman. That's a horcrux of a very evil woman. You can't handle that kind of power." Voldemort smiled with venom.

"Whether I can or can't," Maya said as evenly as possible, "unless you destroy this stone, that bloodstone is worthless."

"That can be arranged," Voldomort held up his wand, but Maya threw the turquoise around her neck. The room began to shake and shimmer, and Harry, Snape and Aria watched in horror as, once again, Aunsten's soul forced it's way through Maya. Her hair began to gray, and her skin bubbled and sagged. Her body shriveled slightly, and her eyes began to glow even more bright gold. When the air had settled, Maya was gone, and in her place was a terrifying old hag with her wand.

"Is that Aunsten?" asked Harry incredulously. Indeed, the little woman with the crazy hair and the glowing yellow eyes stood facing Voldemort. She said something menacingly in a language no one seemed to understand but the Dark Lord, who's eyes went wide with anger.

Aunsten held up her wand, and the bloodstone, which was around Voldemort's neck, began to glow, and fizz, and a bright, red light seemed to be draining from the stone into Aunsten's wand.

"NO!" Voldemort screamed as the last of the magic drained form the bloodstone. He shot the cruciatus curse towards her, but the hag deflected it easily, and shot another curse back at Voldemort. The duel continued for a good minute and a half, with each powerful wizard deflecting the dangerous curses thrown at them from the other. Harry was terrified, but fascinated. Snape was still staring at Aunsten, in the body that Maya used to be in.

Aunsten was wild. She was angry and crazy, and she shot one final blow from her wand, destroying the bloodstone, which shattered at Voldemort's neck. This seemed to particularly anger him, and her placed one very well-aimed shot at the turquoise horcrux around Aunten's neck. The stone exploded, and everyone watched as the old features seemed to melt away. Soon, Maya had been restored to her natural form, and she stood facing Voldemort, more terrified than ever. Voldemort lifted his wand, pointed at the unprepared Maya, and cursed:

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

There was a green light, and May went flying backwards, landing in a heap on the ground. Aria screamed again, grabbed Harry and dove at her sister. She held onto both of them, and apperated back to Hogwarts immediately, leaving Snape to stare at Voldemort, who looked royally pissed off. He didn't know that he would be able to talk his way out of this one. But he didn't care. Maya was dead. She was gone.


	27. Chapter 27

A/N: Thanks for sticking with me this long, guys! I know it took forever to update, but I'm in the middle of midterms...you know how it is. Anyway, this story is almost FINISHED! (Does victory dance). Like I said, I am planning a sequal ... keep bringing in the great reviews to motivate me to keep writing this thing! Thanks to Summerluck2, my most faithful reader ... you rock!

Snape returned from the wrath of the Dark Lord over three hours later, anddragged himselfup the hill to Hogwarts. His mind was as blank as his expression. He couldn't think of the disasters that had occurred just hours before. He WOULDN'T think of it.

Meena was dead. He had killed Meena. The remaining sisters would never forgive him for that …. But he didn't care. The one he cared about was dead as well. Maya was dead. Killed by the Dark Lord. The upsurge of emotion that he felt within him was all too familiar, but it had an added acrid taste to it this time. This was similar to the dizzy, nauseated feeling heremembered havingwhen he found out Lily had been killed. Two loves, both dead. Both killed by Voldemort. 'And this is the man you followed?' he thought to himself in a crazed, bitter voice inside his head. 'This is the man you put your youthful hopes in?'

"He's not a man," he said outloud to the voice in his head. His voice sounded stoney and dead. He didn't even recognize it.

When he entered the castle, he ignored the students who were staring at him, at his bruises and cuts and apathetic expression. He brushed past them all silently. His eyes were hollow, and his body was numb. He let his muscle memory take him through the great hall, down halls towards the dungeons. He wanted to be alone, the great bat, locked away in his cave. He had potions for this sort of misery. Yes, Firewhiskey would do the trick quite well. He cringed inwardly when he saw Hermine Granger come running down a flight of stairs near where he was. Harry was close on her heels.

"Professor!" she called. He didn't turn around. She kept calling, blast her, and finally they caught up and grabbed his arm. He whirled around, and Hermione had the decency to gasp, though she, thankfully, didn't mention any of his grotesque injuries. "Professor Snape, Dumbledore's been asking for you," she hiccupped. He could see that she had been crying, which set a small fire burning in his eyes. What right did she have … she knew nothing of suffering.

"You can tell him I will see him in the morning." He growled, and yanked his arm back from her forcefully.

"Sir, everyone's up in the hospital wing, Sir," Harry began. "I think you should go talk to Aria," Snapes eyes narrowed greatly, and Harry, who also had tear-stains running down the dirt on his face quickly amended his statement. "She's not angry, Sir, just, well, upset…. Athena wants to see you as well, and I think you should go up there-"

Snape leaned over so that his probably-broken nose was right in line with Harry's. "You do not think, POTTER, or you would leave me be!" He snapped up, and whirled. "I owe you two no explanation for my actions. The Headmaster can find me tomorrow if he wishes to see me – I will not see him tonight." And he stomped back down the hall. He was more than irritated to hear Harry's persistant voice call after him, and run to catch up.

"Professor Snape!" He ran, and stood directly in front of him, forcing him to stop. "Here," he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, dirty bundle of something. Snape looked at it dubiously, not taking it. "It's from Maya," Harry explained. "She gave it to me in the graveyard, and wanted me to give it to you if anything … if anything happened …" He choked, and looked away. Snape stared at the bundle for a moment, deciding if it was even worth it - it would onlyfurther his suffereing. Afterall, Maya was dead. How would she know if he took her little funeral present or not? But his emotions got the best of him, and he snatched it away from Harry, and lunged back down the hall, stopping for no one until he managed to shut himself into his quarters. He threw the package on the table, and grabbed the firewhiskey. He didn't bother with a glass, just drank heavily from the bottle. He allowed a choked noise to be emitted from his throat, and then took another swig.

Finally the pain of the day caught up with him in that moment, and he uttered a deep groan, and fell to his knees, still clutching the bottle. He corked it, and tossed it across the floor where it rolled to a halt it the foot of the table. Snape stood heavily and dragged himself to the table. He grabbed at the parcel, and ripped it open. When he saw what was there, he almost threw it across the room, but something stopped him. It was a small, silver ring that, upon closer study, had the Slytherin motto engraved on the inside, with two small snakes intertwined. He squinted carefully. Why would she give this to him if, as Harry had said, 'anything happened' to her? He held it, and her face came into his mind … and something odd began to happen. As he thought about her, the ring began to get hot in his hand. He thought he was imagining it at first, but it began to burn in his flesh. He dropped it, and then picked it up curiously with his cloak. The whiskey was beginning to get to him, and he gave up thinking about it. He wrapped it back in it's packaging and tossed it carelessly on the table, and went to bed.

R/R! Thanks!


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N: Okay! Almost there! THanks for the reviews ... but keep reviewing! I know these chapters are short, but I'm just trying to tie up all the little loose ends. R&R!**

Three days later, the Order of the Phoenix sat at the grand table at 12 Grimmauld place. The mood was solemn, at best. Dumbledore and McGonigal sat together at the head of the table, both looking downhearted. Harry, Hermione and Ron, who had been allowed to attend, were also visibly upset. Hermione stroked Appian, who slept in her lap. Athena was crying silently at one end of the table, and Aria sat, sullenly and silently. Remus sat next to Sirius, who had his head in his hands, shielding his eyes from the light as he fought a vicious hangover. Sirius had not taken the news of Maya's death and Meena's apparent involvement with Lord Voldemort very well at all. No one had seen Snape since that fateful day, and Dumbledore had asked that no one try to bother him. No one had argued with that.

"Albus," Sirius growled. "Where is SNAPE? I've got some questions for that greasy bastard," His words were a bit slurred still, and Remus looked slightly embarrassed for him.

"I'm sure Severus will be here in due time," Albus began.

"Why didn't he TELL us!" Sirius began in a wail. "Why didn't he tell us that she was one of THEM! She was HERE, Albus. She could've told everyone where we ARE!" He pounded his fist on the table.

"I'm sure that had Severus known of her involvement he would have said something," sighed McGonigal. This was not the first time this topic had been discussed.

"Sirius, I don't think she was a Death Eater." Harry chimed in. "I mean, she seemed to have found where we all were by accident. The only reason she found anyone is because she grabbed me, and dragged me up the stairs with her. The other Death Eaters didn't seem to know who she was at all." He paused, and then added darkly. "How could anyone want to kill Maya that much? I mean, she was her sister!"

Sirius looked at Harry darkly. "If you had siblings Harry, you might understand wanting to kill one of them when they turn against you."

Harry, though feeling rather defeated by this comment, decided it wasn't worth it to argue with his slightly intoxicated and overly-emotional godfather.

At that moment the door slammed, and Sirius's mother began to screech loudly. A sound like a dull thud came next, and the portrait was immediately unnaturally silent. Everyone turned their heads, and watched as Snape barreled into the room, and stormed over to Harry. He grabbed him by the collar.

"What is the meaning of THIS!" he thrust the ring, amidst its mess of packaging, at Harry.

"I … I don't know, Sir! She just gave it to me!"

"Get your filthy hands off of him," shouted Sirius, standing up, and held back by Lupin.

Snape looked at Sirius with disgust, and released Harry. He then turned to Hermione, and looked down in her lap. He scruffed the dog, and pulled it away from her despite her protest.

"Severus, Really," said Remus, preparing to walk around the table. "We know you're angry, but don't take it out on the dog!"

"Dog? Lupin? Of all people I should think that you would be able to recognize a dog when you see one." He threw the dog on the ground. Appian growled at him and bared his teeth. "This is no dog." And Snape pointed his wand at Appian.. Hermione shrieked, and Ron covered his eyes. A powerful yellow beam shot from Snape's wand, and surrounded the small dog. Everyone watched in surprise as Appian grew larger, and his limbs grew longer, and his fur slowly faded back into his body. When the transformation was done, a young man stood next to the table at Grimmauld place and looked at everyone with extreme confusion.

"He's an animagus!" squealed Ron.

"No, he was just turned into that blasted little dog by his wife." Snape growled.

They all just looked at the man standing there, who was, apparently, Maya's ex-husband Trevor.

"Well?" Snape poked him with his wand.

"Where's Maya!" the man asked. "Where am I? What's going on here?" His voice grew in confidence, and he began to demand his questions.

"Your wife is dead," Snape sneered at him. "So is Meena. So is your son, by the way."

The man just looked at Snape as if he were going to vomit. "My …. What?"

"You stupid, stupid man!" Snape grabbed him by the lapels of his now 20-years out of date shirt. "Maya turned you into her dog when she found out about your illicit affair! And now I've brought you back."

"But they're both dead?" He looked as if he didn't know whether to believe this man or to run away.

"Yes," Snape growled. "Dead. This is all that's left of her." He thrust the ring at Trevor, and then turned and stomped towards the door. He looked over his shoulder and yelled, "If someone doesn't get that idiot out of this house by the time I'm back here tomorrow, I will kill him!" And he slammed the door behind him.

Trevor looked around the table, and everyone at the table just stared.


	29. Chapter 29

**THIS IS IT! THE LAST CHAPTER IN PART I! THANKS FOR STAYING WITH ME! R&R!**

FLASHBACK:

Severus Sighed. He was sitting in his room. It would be the last time. He was going back home later that afternoon. School was over. Forever. He, and everyone else in his year, had just graduated. And he was glad.

He thought about what had happened – they had graduated, and afterwards, the first person to speak to him was Lily Evans. She had run up to him and hugged him – it would have been nice except for the fact that James Potter was standing ten yards away giving him a very strange, and not altogether friendly glare. He had smiled weakly at Lily, and been very thankful when she had been distracted by another girl in their year. He had ducked away from just about everyone at that point. And found himself sitting on his bed. Alone. 'Good', he thought with bitter satisfaction. 'That's how I prefer it anyhow.' And then he had stifled an angry growl by crashing his teeth together.

A knock came, almost timidly to the door. He made no move to open it. Another knock, more forceful this time. There was still no one he wanted to see, so he sat, silently. There came no noise for a few seconds, and he almost sighed in relief, when he saw the door open a crack. He jumped up, and swung it open prepared to make a horrible comment about how rude it was to enter a room unannounced and uninvited, when Maya fell into him.

"Sev! Why didn't you answer the door?" she asked breathlessly. He just looked at her. She knew he was still mad at her – livid, really. Her body language was stiff and frightened. When he still didn't answer she walked into the room, detangling herself from him. "I just wanted to say goodbye, Sev. And here," she held out a box. "I brought you some stuff … yeah." She put it down on the bed. He still said nothing.

Maya, suddenly overcome, burst into tears, and walked to the door. "I didn't want us to hate each other, Sev! For God's sake, I LOVE you! You just had to go and muck it all up," she put her face into her hands and wept.

"ME?" he said coldly. "I think you were the one who turned ME away."

"I know … and I'm sorry! But I didn't know what to do! I mean, come ON!" She was leaning against the door now. She looked up at him, and almost started crying again. Instead, she took a deep breath, and walked to the bed. "Look. I left you some stuff that I'm not taking with me. There's a record player … I know you don't have one … and some music …. And here." She held up something that looked like a miniature palm tree. "It's a portkey. It goes to my parents' house in California. If you ever want to find me, this will help you." She walked to him and touched him gently. "I do hope one day you will want to find me…" He looked away, and tears began to roll down her face again. She shook her head, and sniffed loudly, and walked to the door. "Goodbye Sev," she whispered, and left he room. It was the last he saw of her for many, many years, but he would think of her almost every day.

He went to the box, and looked through it. Mostly stuff that reminded him of her too much to ever actually use. But at the bottom there was something small and green and round. He picked it up, and looked at it curiously. It was a memory orb, in a designer Slytherin colored smoke. He looked at it and whispered her name, almost inaudibly. The smoke began to swirl, and a picture of her came to the orb. She was younger, maybe 5th year. She was smiling and winking – and he thought he might throw up. He held the orb tightly in his hands, not looking into it anymore. One day he would be able to look through all the pictures encased in the orb, but not today. He slowly unwrapped his fingers, and placed the orb back in the box. He didn't look at it again for a long, long time.

PRESENT

It had been a difficult two months. Maya was gone. Meena was gone. And he had missed out on 15 years of the best years of his life! Yes, Life was rough for Trevor Wraid. Luckily, he was able to move back to California and get his life back together. And lucky for him, he had a hot young thing to share it with.

Her name was Olga Klanova, and she was a firm, sexy young Russian tennis player that Trevor had met at the club one afternoon. He salivated just thinking about her. They didn't really talk, as she spoke mostly Russian, but the sex was amazing, and that was all he cared about at the moment. He had been a dog for fifteen years, or so he was told. He deserved some fun!

That particular evening, he and Olga were sitting out on the deck of his new Los Angeles high rise apartment. The night was warm, and the champagne was cold. And gone. And they were onto the Vodka, now. Olga giggles, and snuggled deeper into Trevor's lap. Yes, life was sweet.

Trevor shifted his weight, and brought out a small, velvet jewelry box.

"Olga, you are, quite possibly, one of the most beautiful women I have ever met," he said. She smiled though this was not news to her. "Here, my darling. I want you to have this." He popped open the box to reveal a delicate silver ring. He didn't know it had the Slytherin motto on it. He wasn't in Slytherin. He had no idea what it meant, or why it was significant. Nor, really, did he care. "It was my sister's," he lied. "And she was beautiful. Not as beautiful as you, but close." He smiled with a hint of a leer, and gave her the ring.

"Oh, Trevor!" she squealed in her Russian accent. "It's lovely!"

"Put it on!" They stood, and she slipped the ring on her finger. She held her hand up, and they both admired it. Until something strange began to happen. Her skin began to slowly change shades. Playing tennis in LA constantly had made Olga rather tan, but her tan was melting away. Her eyes went wide, and Trevor cocked his head. They both stared. The de-tanning of the young girl was now becoming apparent on her neck and face as well.

"Olga! Your face!" Trevor squeaked.

"What is happening?" she asked, and Trevor watched as her eyes turned from brown to blue, and her face began to seemingly rearrange itself. The balcony began to shake, as if there were an earthquake, and Trevor held tight to the railing. There was thunder, and lightening, and Trevor looked to the sky. When he turned his head back to his young girlfriend, he was surprised – no, shocked and horrified – to see that she was gone.

And in her place stood Maya Howe.

"You!" he yelled. "I thought you were dead! What have you done to Olga!"

Maya brushed herself off. "Trevor? What the hell? WHERE'S MY DOG!"

They stood and stared at each other for a moment. Maya continued. "This ring was a horcrux. I gave it to Harry to give to Snape so he could stick it back on my body to revive me! How did you get it!" She paused, and then looked at him disgustedly. "And why did you give it to your girlfried?"

"Why did you turn me into a dog?"

"You slept with my sister!"

"So!"

Maya just looked at him. "You are such an idiot," she said slowly. And she walked towards his door, slamming it on her way out. As she walked, she began to cry. Her life was over. She had been dead for … well, she didn't even know how long. Several months, she assumed. She couldn't show up alive again in the muggle world. No one would understand. And no doubt if she were to go to the wizarding world, the Dark Lord would kill her immediately. Why hadn't Snape taken the ring? A thought struck her … Was Snape dead? Had Voldemort killed him? And what of her sisters? She sat on a bench outside Trevor's building, and wept. She had to start over. She couldn't let anyone know she was back. It was too dangerous.

She couldn't tell anyone. Least of all Severus Snape. She took a deep breath, stood, and apperated away - away to begin her new life.

THE END …. OR IS IT?

OKAY, IT'S NOT …. A SEQUAL IS IN THE WORKS.

THANK EVERYONE FOR READING AND REVIEWING! TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!

THANKS AND GOODNIGHT!


	30. Chapter 30

OK Guys! The Sequal is up! Thanks to my loyal readers, and I hope you enjoy this next installment! It's called 'Everything You Left Behind'. Will Sev and Maya get back together? I can't really give it away, but, based on the last story, you can probably figure out how it'll all go down in the end. Thanks Guys!

-Popess2


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